


Winteriron Prompt Fills - 2016

by 27dragons



Series: imaginetonyandbucky fills [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-22 05:49:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 24,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6067498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short (under 3000 word) prompt fills originally written for the imaginetonyandbucky blog during 2016. (Prompt fills over 3000 words will be posted as standalone fics; everything is listed in the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/collections/imaginetonyandbucky">Imagine Tony and Bucky</a> collection.) The prompts, along with rating and applicable warnings, are provided in the chapter summary for each fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 4 Jan 2016: Bucky's Compass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** G  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Prompt:** Imagine if Bucky carries around Tony's photo like how Steve used to carry Peggy's in his compass (maybe it's a 40s thing) and Tony finds out and that's how he finds out Bucky likes him :3 -Anonymous

“How come you won’t tell me?” Bucky said as he followed Steve into the meeting room. “I’m still your best friend, ain’t I?”

“That’s exactly why I’m not telling you,” Steve said. Tony looked up from the notepad he was doodling on at the tight tone of Steve’s voice, and sure enough the good Captain’s neck was bright red. Whatever this discussion was, it was going to be a good one.

“What’s this?” Clint asked from Tony’s far side, stilling the arrow he’d been spinning in his fingers.

“Steve won’t show me whose picture he’s got in his compass, these days,” Bucky complained, grinning at Steve like a shark.

“Maybe there’s no one there,” Steve tried, but he was the worst liar in the world.

“Nah, you got Tasha to stop trying to set you up, which means there’s  _someone_  in there,” Bucky said. Natasha lifted a hand and Bucky high-fived her as he passed her on the way to his seat. “Of course, she won’t tell me who it is.”

Natasha just looked smug.

“Is that a 40s thing, then,” Bruce asked. “Putting a picture of your sweetheart in your compass?”

“Cigarette case, sometimes,” Bucky said, dropping into his chair, “but Steve wasn’t much of a smoker, even during the war, and most of us Commandos used our compasses, too.” He turned his attention back to Steve, sitting at his left. “But you never used to  _hide_  it from me before,” he said pointedly.

The red glow on Steve’s neck wasn’t fading at all. “What about you?” he shot back. “Who’s in  _your_  compass these days, Buck?”

Bucky wasn’t fazed by much; Tony fully expected him to snark back at Steve, but instead the Avengers were treated to the sight of the Winter Soldier, the most feared assassin of the twentieth century, blushing like a schoolboy. “Shut up,” he muttered, slumping down in his seat and fixing his eyes on the edge of the table.

Steve looked smug, but didn’t push the issue.

“I think the modern equivalent,” Natasha said, weirdly uninterested in pursuing the question of Bucky’s compass, “is probably putting someone’s picture on your phone’s lock screen.”

“Yep,” Clint agreed. “I’ve got Nat on mine, and I’m pretty sure she’s got a garrote or a knife or something on hers.”

Natasha rolled her eyes and called Clint something unflattering in a language that Tony didn’t know, because they all knew that Natasha’s lock screen was a group photo of the team that she’d kept from some photo op they’d done.

“Let’s see what Tony’s got,” Clint said, and Tony turned just a fraction of a second too slow to stop Clint from swiping Tony’s phone off the table and shoving his chair back out of reach. “It’s either robots or swimsuit models, I’m not sure which–” He broke off as he thumbed the phone on. “Huh.”

It wasn’t a  _total_  creeper move; Bucky had known Tony was taking the picture when he’d taken it. He’d needed several pictures of the arm in various positions in order to do the repairs. And at the time, that was all it had been.

It wasn’t until much later, after they’d spent hours together, swapping stories and jokes to keep Bucky’s mind off the work Tony was doing, that Tony had looked again at the pictures and been been arrested by the expression of wonder on Bucky’s face as he’d looked around Tony’s workshop.

“So  _apparently_ ,” Clint informed the rest of the room gleefully, twisting easily away from Tony’s attempts to grab it back like the agile circus freak he was, “Tony’s boner is for Bucky’s arm.”

“Fuck you, Katniss,” Tony snarled, trying once again to snatch his phone back.

“That’s really not news,” Natasha said, and whatever else she might have said was cut off by Fury sweeping into the room, finally.

“Why is it always some sort of kindergarten nonsense with you people?” he growled. “Stark, stop trying to climb Barton. Barton, give Stark’s phone back. Both of you sit down and shut up until I ask for your reports.”

Tony shoved his phone into his breast pocket and slumped into his seat, but across the table, Natasha was studying him with a slightly furrowed brow.

Shit, he had  _totally_  overreacted. If it was just tech porn, he wouldn’t have tried to hide it. He would have owned it proudly, in fact, made some inappropriately lewd comment that would’ve had the others rolling their eyes or laughing.

Which meant that Natasha  _knew_ , now, dammit. Tony pretended to be listening to Fury in order to avoid her measuring gaze. He hoped none of the others had put it together.

Fury was droning  _on_  and  _on_  about whatever it was, a pod of giant squid swarming Hawai'i or something – excellent; it was about time they got to Avenge something in a location worth visiting – but seriously, was this much talk necessary? Tony couldn’t sit still, couldn’t resist sneaking a glance down the table at Bucky, to make sure he hadn’t clocked it–

Bucky was staring  _right at Tony_ , not even pretending to listen to Fury, fidgeting with something small, turning it over and over in his fingers.

When he saw Tony looking, his lips curved and his hands stilled enough for Tony to see that it was, in fact, his compass.

Tony was an internationally-renowned playboy; he was  _not blushing_  over a simple smile, damn it.

Bucky glanced around at their teammates, and Tony couldn’t help but do the same – they all appeared to actually be deeply interested in the damn squid, for some reason. When he looked back, Bucky flipped the compass open and turned it so Tony could see–

–himself. Not a polished PR picture clipped from a magazine, but a tousle-haired Tony with a smudge of grease on his forehead and a serious, intent expression on the face lit eerily blue by, most likely, a screen out of frame. Something JARVIS must have clipped from the security footage at Bucky’s request.

Startled, Tony looked back up at Bucky. Bucky’s smile quirked up on one side and he shrugged slightly, rueful and slightly apprehensive.

Tony grinned and pulled his phone back out of his pocket to compose a text:  _What say after we tie these squids’ tentacles in knots, we stick around for a romantic tropical vacation?_

[ ](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8kfZbdEvY5WSExhcG4tdHVOOFU)


	2. 7 Jan 2016: Wedding Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** T  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Prompt:** Imagine Tony and Bucky's wedding night. -Anonymous

Tony wanted it known, for the record, that he had been  _in favor_  of the whole “no sex/sleep apart for a month before the wedding” plan. He’s a grown man, for god’s sake; he can go without sex for a month without spontaneously combusting, even when he’s living in the same building as his ridiculously hot fiancé. It’s a good thing they’d agreed that jerking off was still allowed, because: ridiculously hot fiancé, but still: adult.

He had to admit the last few days had been pretty tough on the restraint front, but again, to be fair, he and Bucky had both kind of been trying to make it hard (pun totally intended) on each other, looking forward to their wedding night and the end of their self-imposed celibacy. Smirking leers, sneaky gropes, heavy-lidded looks and heated, lingering kisses.

But now, Tony was starting to really regret all of it.

It had started when Pepper had slipped into Tony’s dressing room before the wedding and regretfully informed him that the Stark Industries private jet that was supposed to take them to their honeymoon destination had encountered a major mechanical failure and wasn’t going to be available. But! she had already booked them first-class seats on a commercial flight, complete with a large gift basket and a snack hamper, and contacted the ground transportation at the other end about the change of plan. So if they could keep it in their pants just a couple of hours longer than previously anticipated, it would all work out.

It had been a bit of a disappointment, of course, but it wasn’t like Tony hadn’t already inducted Bucky into the mile-high club more than a year ago, and, well, shit happened. They were still getting married, after all, and that was the important thing, right? Right. Tony had thanked Pepper for making all the updated arrangements and – being in a rare sentimental mood – kissed her cheek before asking her to pin on his boutonniere for him.

See? Totally adult.

The whole getting-married thing? That had been perfect. Their favorite people had borne witness, they had looked into each other’s eyes and said their vows, and Tony may or may not have seen Captain America getting a bit misty when they’d kissed.

The airport was less perfect. The closest Tony had come to commercial air flight in two decades was the SI private jet. He’d been very impatient with even the expedited security check-in that Pepper had arranged for (because of Bucky’s metal arm, she had insisted, and not in any way to cater to Tony’s sense of privilege).

Still, the VIP lounge at the airport had been moderately well-appointed and as comfortable as an airport waiting area could be. Tony had nuzzled into Bucky’s neck and been  _just_ about to convince Bucky that they could totally have sex in the lounge’s bathroom before they started boarding the flight when an announcement came over the loudspeakers, announcing a short delay in the flight, and Bucky had insisted on going to find out what was going on.

Weather, as it turned out, was going on. A huge storm was barreling down out of the north, and almost all the departing planes were being delayed so that their wings could be treated with de-icer.

Having experienced icing problems in flight first-hand, Tony had reluctantly approved of this measure, and he and Bucky had gone back to snuggling in the lounge.

Due to the delays, however, even the VIP lounge became rather crowded, and Tony had to give up on trying to talk Bucky into sneaking some quality time in the restroom.

Tony was really,  _really_  beginning to regret agreeing to that whole “no sex for a month” deal.

After several hours of ever-increasing delays, just as Tony was about to decide fuck it; that they’d go back to the Tower or stay in a local hotel for the night, the storm broke. It hit the airport with such fury that they could hear the howling wind and the creak of stressed girders even over the crowds. Tony and Bucky exchanged worried glances, but just as Bucky opened his mouth to speak, the speakers crackled to life. “Attention, passengers and crew. All departing flights for this evening are now cancelled, effective immediately, and roads in the immediate area are closed until further notice due to the conditions of the storm. Please be patient and remain in your places; airline representatives will be with you shortly to answer questions and provide assistance.”

Bucky looked down at Tony’s carryon bag. “Don’t suppose there’s a suit in there?”

Tony shook his head. “They made me put all the good gadgets in my checked bags.”

Bucky sighed and dropped his head on Tony’s shoulder. “Fuck. Guess that means we’re stuck.” He slipped his fingers through Tony’s, turning Tony’s hand to look at the ring he’d put there only a few hours earlier. “Starting to wish we’d skipped that whole sleeping-apart thing, though.”

Tony grinned and kissed Bucky’s temple. “Me, too, babe.”

The lights flickered and died. A few seconds later the emergency power came up, but since it was limited to essential functions only, the airport still felt dark and eerie.

“Damn it,” Tony muttered. “Could this possibly get any–”

Bucky kissed him to keep him from finishing the sentence. “Don’t say it,” Bucky warned when he pulled back. “It’s tempting the fates.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Superstition,” he mumbled, but he leaned back in for another kiss. “Remind me to fire Pepper.”

“It’s not Pepper’s fault,” Bucky said.

“Well, remind me to figure out whose fault this is and fire  _them_.”

“Yeah, okay,” Bucky agreed. He frowned at the thick windows on the far side of the room. “Did you see that?”

“See what?” Tony looked, but saw nothing but near-horizontal torrents of rain and occasional flashes of lightning.

“I could have sworn I saw something,” Bucky said. He got up and paced closer to the windows.

Tony followed along gamely, until a flustered-looking airline employee stepped into their path. “We need everyone to stay away from the windows,” she said, apologetic and tired. “The wind out there may be strong enough to hurl debris with enough force to crack the glass–”

“Are you kidding me?” Tony interrupted. “Lady, we’re  _Avengers_. I’ve been thrown  _through_ tougher glass than this.” While wearing the suit, obviously, but he didn’t need to mention that. “We just want a look at–”

“ _Stark!_ ” bellowed a voice that Tony recognized. He spun around to see the Iron Patriot at the door to the lounge, carrying a familiar red and gold suitcase. The instant Rhodey spotted him, the Patriot’s faceplate popped open. “Tony,” he said, striding across the room, expression grim. He greeted Bucky with a sharp nod. “Barnes. Vacation’s over, boys.” He handed Tony the suitcase.

“It hasn’t even  _started_  yet,” Tony complained, but he thumbed the fingerprint lock and dropped the case to step into it, ignoring the staring and whispering of the people around them.

Rhodey tossed a commlink to Bucky, who started fitting it over his ear. “Am I supposed to punch the cold front?” Bucky asked wryly. “Or just use the arm for a lightning rod?”

Tony glanced over at him while the armor unfolded along his body. “That’s not even funny.”

Bucky grinned at him. “It is a little.”

“Steve’s holding a stash for you just outside,” Rhodey told Bucky. “Didn’t want to argue with security about it since I was just going to bring you right back out anyway.”

“But you brought Tony’s gear,” Bucky said. “I see how it is.”

The helmet closed over Tony’s head and he shrugged until it settled comfortably. “I’m totally the favorite,” Tony said, even as Rhodey turned to lead the way back out of the airport and Tony and Bucky fell into step behind him. “What’s going on out there, snickerdoodle?”

“This is no ordinary storm,” Rhodey said. “Wanda will fill us in while we’re en route. Sorry to put the honeymoon on hold, but this one’s going to take everything we’ve got.”

Tony glanced at Bucky beside him, and caught Bucky looking back. Bucky winked, and reached out, threading the fingers of the gauntlet through those of Bucky’s metal hand and thumbed the red-gold band there. “Well. At least they waited until the most important bit was done. Ready to go wreak some havoc, husband of mine?”

Bucky squeezed Tony’s hand, just enough for him to feel it through the armor. “It’s not the wedding night I was hoping for,” he admitted. “But since it’s with you, I’ll take it.”

 


	3. 20 Jan 2016: Time-Traveling Kid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** G  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Prompts:**  
>  \- Imagine Tony and Bucky's kid asking them how they first met/fell in love/first kissed and both Tony and Bucky spun different wild and crazy stories with conflicting versions every time they asked. The truth is actually far simpler and sweeter -Anonymous  
> \- imagine tony and bucky’s kid travelling back in time and meeting his parents before they got together (like when bucky first joined the avengers) -Anonymous

“It worked! Oh my god, it worked!”

Tony whirled away from his work, heart pounding, gauntlet at the ready. “Hands up,” he snapped. “I don’t know who you are or how you got in here, but–”

The intruder – just a kid, really, he couldn’t have been older than sixteen – put his hands up willingly. “Oh my god. The hair. The  _hair_ , I can’t believe you actually–”

Tony powered up the gauntlet, letting it whine menacingly.

The kid lifted his hands a little higher as if in protest. “Don’t shoot! You don’t want to shoot me, I swear. Okay, the hair crack was probably out of line. It’s, what, 2015? You probably think it looks great.” He looked pretty relaxed for someone who had been caught somehow breaking into Tony’s workshop.

“2016,” Tony corrected, not lowering his gauntlet. “Who are you?”

“Grant, my name is Grant,” the kid said. He did a little shuffling dance, grinning in a way that seemed somehow familiar. “I’m from 2038. The year. I can’t believe it worked! You look so  _young_.”

Tony glanced down at himself – solder-singed tank top, grease-smeared jeans, and steel-toed boots – and then looked back up. “You… traveled twenty-two years back in time and it’s a surprise that I look younger?”

“It’s just so weird! I mean, I’ve seen pictures and everything, but to see it in real life is just–”

The door to the workshop burst open to reveal Bucky, bristling with both weaponry and menace. He trained it all on Grant in an instant. “FRIDAY said there was an intruder,” Bucky growled.

Grant’s lips moved in a voiceless “oh wow”.

The kid was carefully keeping his hands up, but he seemed excited and happy and not at all intimidated by either Tony’s gauntlet or Bucky’s guns, so Tony dropped the gauntlet and nudged Bucky to holster his weapons. "What are you doing here?" Tony asked Grant.

Grant slowly lowered his hands. "You’re probably going to think it’s dumb, but… I came to find out how my parents got together."

“You what.” Bucky’s tone was flat.

“I know, I know! It’s just, every time someone asks, they tell a completely different story, and they just get crazier and weirder every time. The last one involved a sentient plant and an asteroid made out of the skull of a giant. The one before that was an Asgardian drinking game. I just really want to know the truth!”

Tony snorted. “You know what; I’ve heard crazier things. Who are your parents?”

Grant suddenly looked uncertain. “Uh. I don’t know if I’m supposed to say. It could disrupt–”

“Scratch that, more important question,” Tony interrupted. He pointed at the space behind Grant where the air had gone all blue and shimmery. “What’s that?”

Grant twisted his head to look and his face dropped into a hangdog expression that looked surprisingly like Clint’s caught-in-the-act face. “Oh, crap.”

Bucky reacted quickly, stepping forward to put himself between Tony and the blue shimmer. “Get back,” he told Grant tightly.

Grant shook his head. “It’s not dangerous, it’s just an incoming time-portal, which means it’s probably my–”

“You are in  _so much trouble_ , young man,” said a very familiar voice. The blue shimmer coalesced and shaped itself into– well, it looked like Tony, but older, with lines on his face and a longer, looser haircut that was far more salt than pepper. Tony must have missed the shimmer heralding Grant’s arrival. He’d be having words with FRIDAY about that later.

“Your father is going to  _kill_ you,” Future Tony was telling Grant, “and I may not stop him this time. I don’t even know when–” He glanced at Bucky and Tony, and if Tony hadn’t known himself so well, he would have missed the fractional widening of his eyes or the tic at the hinge his jaw. “Oh,  _that’s_  when we are. Really, Grant? You risked temporal distortion, the possible end of the universe as you know it, and a month’s grounding for  _this_?  _Again_?”

“I just wanted a straight answer for once,” Grant protested, slouching sullenly. “I wasn’t gonna mess with anything!”

The older Tony leveled the kid with an unamused look. “Grounded,” he reiterated firmly. “Plus whatever your dad says. He was worried sick you were going to try to ‘fix’ things. Go on, now. Back home with you.”

Grant cast a slightly guilty look toward Tony, or perhaps Bucky, then hunched his shoulders even more and poked at a device strapped on his wrist with all the angry force of a teen come face-to-face with an unfair universe. A reddish shimmer enveloped him, and the three adults watched until the last of the glow had disappeared before Future Tony finally turned to face them, pushing his longer hair back out of his face.

“I miss that hair,” he told Tony. “It was a lot easier to take care of.”

Tony grinned at his counterpart. “Maybe I just won’t change it.”

The older Tony grinned back. “You’ll try, but Pepper will have her way, as usual. Listen, I’m sorry about this whole thing. The kid’s kind of obsessed, and we just couldn’t tell him.”

“Why not?” Bucky asked.

“To put it succinctly,” the older Tony said, quirking a strange smile at Bucky, “because he needed to come looking for it himself, so that I would follow him. I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time.”

“Twenty-two years, give or take,” Tony agreed faintly.

The future Tony smiled more widely. “The answer to that thing you’ve been wondering about,” he told Bucky, “is a resounding yes.”

Still half in front of Tony, Bucky’s face wasn’t visible, but his shoulders and back tensed.

The other Tony poked at his own device. “The answer to the second question is Cucina Gina,” he said as the red shimmer wrapped around him.

“What about Cucina Gina?” Tony asked. “That’s my favorite restaurant in New York.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said faintly. As the last of the time-travel glow dissipated, he turned to look at Tony. He looked almost… nervous. “You want to go there sometime? With me?”

“Yes,” Tony said immediately.

“I mean. Like a, a date,” Bucky said.

“Yes,” Tony repeated. “Absolutely.”

“Yeah?” Bucky asked, nervousness slowly transforming into delight. It was a good look for him.

“Yeah,” Tony said, trying not to think about the goofy smile growing on his own face. “You know, I think we may have just met our, uh, future son.”

“I was getting that,” Bucky said. He reached for Tony’s hand. “Let’s just let the future take care of itself, okay?”

“Okay,” Tony said, and leaned in for a kiss.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you were wondering, the kid's full name is Grant Rupert Stark-Barnes, and yes, both Steve and Rhodey cried when they found out. ;-)


	4. 22-Feb-2016: Roman Patrician/Slave AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** T  
>  **Prompt:** First off, you guys are amazing! I don't even have a Tumblr but this is the first thing I check in the morning. You guys have me shipping this SO HARD. I've had [the fic about Bucky and Tony being soul mates through time and species](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3603543/chapters/10579374) stuck in my head since it was published. Esp. the part about Tony selling himself to slavery to pay his family's debt and Bucky seeing him and falling in love at first sight. Could you guys please please write more on that? Esp. How Tony felt. Please and thank you <3 -Anonymous  
>  **Warnings:** Tony is a slave, and there are references to (historically accurate) institutionally-accepted rape. There is _no_ non-con between the main characters, but use your best judgement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aside from Tony, none of the characters’ names translate reasonably to Latin. Rather than spend too long fussing over the “right” name for each person, I’ve just left them all in their modern forms. If if makes you feel better just pretend they’re all slightly unusual cognomens (~nicknames). Sorry, classical scholars.
> 
> The relevant quote from the story referenced in the prompt is:
>
>> “He’d sold himself into slavery,” Bucky said out of nowhere, “to pay his family’s debts. The slave market was noisy and horrible and smelled terrible, and I was just trying to get past as fast as I could, on the way to some party, I think. But I saw him there, standing so tall and proud, and I couldn’t walk away. He was young and strong and educated, and the bidding was fierce, and it took my entire allowance for the quarter to take him home with me. I was in love from the first moment I saw him, but he managed my house and my accounts for three years before he admitted that he loved me, too.”
>> 
>> Steve eyed him uneasily. “Did Natasha leave another one of those terrible romance novels lying around again?”
>> 
>> Bucky shook his head, his eyes still dreamy. “He was Greek, I think. By the time I was twenty-five he owned me more thoroughly than I ever owned him.”

The fastest way to the party was through the market. Bucky was running late, or he would have gone around. The market was always crowded, thick with the stench of sweat and offal and foreign spices and the hot tang of metal, and it made Bucky’s skin crawl. But he was late, and Steve would never forgive him if he missed this dinner, not now that Steve’s legion had finally returned home from the campaign in Gaul and Germania – the same campaign that Bucky had been forced to depart early, after leaving an arm behind on the battlefield.

The market was even more crowded than usual, and Bucky cursed under his breath as he pushed through the throngs. There were slave auctions underway in the center square, which explained the extra commotion. Bucky pulled to a halt as he waited for a heavily-laden cart to trundle past and glanced curiously at the slaves on offer. His eye was immediately drawn by a woman with flame-red hair, but it was the dark-haired young man she was talking to that held his attention.

The boy stood straight and proud, but Bucky knew enough to read his fear in the way his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, the way his jaw tightened at every shout from the crowd, the way the skin around his eyes stretched them wide, the way he stared fixedly at the spot on the ground in front of him. The red-haired woman had a hand on his shoulder and was speaking into his ear.

Bucky caught himself leaning forward, straining to catch even a murmur, wanting to take the youth’s hand and soothe the furrow between his brows with a gentle kiss.

A  _kiss_? By Juno, Bucky was gone already, and he hadn’t even looked into the boy’s eyes yet. Bucky wanted this boy –  _needed_  him. Bucky could feel it in his bones, with all the surety of a battlefield hunch.

Bucky’s battlefield hunches had never led him wrong; his last such sudden impulse had made him dodge to the left instead of the right when the arrows began to fall, and he’d lost only an arm instead of his life. Such impulses, Bucky’s commander had once told him, were gifts of the gods.

Bucky felt for his purse.

***

Tony’s heart pounded in his chest. His knees had turned to water, and his hands shook like leaves in a summer storm, but he pressed his lips together and put one foot in front of the other resolutely.

_Don’t throw up_ , Tony reminded himself, and swallowed the bile that rose. This moment had been coming for days, ever since Tony had put his name to the creditor’s contract, but it wasn’t until he’d been led into the waiting pen at the market that it had felt  _real_. Everything else had seemed momentary, a thing to endure and then be past, but  _this_ , walking barefoot across the dusty ground to make his first bow to his  _owner_ – This moment reached inside him the way nothing else had, dancing electricity along his nerves.

“Antonius,” his master said as he approached, voice full of ill-suppressed anticipation.

Tony looked up and found himself caught, his gaze snared by his master’s eyes, steel-blue and intent but not, Tony thought, cruel. Tony’s master was young, not many years older than Tony himself, and aside from a missing arm, well-formed – even beautiful.

“Lady Fortuna has smiled upon me again,” Tony’s master said, brushing a lock of Tony’s hair from his face with reverent propriety.

_Let him only be kind_ , Tony prayed,  _and she will have smiled upon us both._

***

Steve hadn’t been too angry with Bucky for being late to the party, not after Bucky had told his tale. Steve and the others had learned to trust Bucky’s instincts; they agreed he’d only done what the gods had intended. So Bucky had willingly drunk half a bottle of “penalty wine”, and the party had continued on, bright and joyous. It had been wonderful to be reunited with his friends from the legion, but Bucky had not lingered overlong when the party was done.

Bucky’s head was reeling from the wine, but his heart was light as he followed the narrow road that led toward home. His new slave would be waiting for him there, beautiful as the moon…  _Antonius_ , Bucky thought fondly.  _No, Antony; he’s Greek. Antony. Tony._

He was besotted already, and with more than the wine.

Bucky pushed through the door. He closed and bolted it, then brushed his fingers over the head of the Lar figurine in its nook by the door, where it protected the house while its human occupants slept. He turned back to see Tony at the side of the atrium.

The red mark on his cheek and the way he was hastily brushing out his tunic with one hand suggested that he’d fallen asleep on the lounging couch while waiting for Bucky’s return.

Bucky smiled, hoping to ease Tony’s nervousness. “I don’t mind if you nap while I’m out,” he said as he led the way to his bedroom. “You look better for it.”

Tony did look better. In Bucky’s absence, someone – probably the cook – had seen to it that Tony was properly bathed and dressed. His hair and skin shone, smelling faintly of sweet cleansing oil. His new tunic was roughspun, of course, but clean and whole. The Barnes crest was embroidered over the heart. Without thinking, Bucky touched it, following the grain of the thread. “I like the look of this on you.”

“Thank you, master,” Tony said. He took a quick breath before continuing, “Shall I help you prepare for bed?”

Tony undressed Bucky carefully, and Bucky was not so lost to the wine that he missed the way Tony’s hands trembled. Nor was Bucky so innocent as to wonder what Tony feared. He should say something, he knew, to put Tony at ease. Bucky sat on the sleeping couch and patted the cushion beside him. “Come, sit.”

Tony froze for a heartbeat, and then meticulously laid Bucky’s toga aside before doing as Bucky had asked. He fidgeted briefly and then stopped. His hands clenched in his lap and his chin lifted proudly.

Bucky wanted to kiss and nip at the long column of Tony’s neck, but held himself still.  _Reassuring_ , he reminded himself, but when he opened his mouth what came out was, “It’s said in some parts of Rome that Greek men are as willing to lie under their lovers as they are to lie on top of them.”  _I would let you be on top_ , it was meant to imply, but somehow – Bucky blamed the wine – that message had become muddled.

Certainly, Tony had not caught it, because his fists tightened and he snapped, “It’s said in Greece that Roman men are as likely to stick their pricks into pigs as their wives.” The instant it left his lips, his hands clapped over his mouth and his skin turned waxy pale. “I’m sorry,” he gasped.

Bucky burst out laughing. Tony was staring at him now, eyes rounded in horror, but Bucky just laughed harder.

“Master, I didn’t mean–” Tony tried, but Bucky waved him to silence.

“It might be true,” he confided, chortling, “and I’m glad to see you showing your spirit.”

“You are?” Tony’s eyes were still round, but he slowly lowered his hands. “You’re not… angry?”

“No,” Bucky said, wiping away tears of mirth, and abruptly sobering. “The gods brought you to me for a reason, Tony. I believe that. I want you as you are. I won’t punish you for being as the gods made you.”

Tony didn’t entirely believe what Bucky had said, that much was obvious, but at least he was relaxing somewhat. Tony looked down at his hands, plucking idly at the simple woven leather bracelet he wore, turning it on his wrist and twisting a frayed ending between delicate fingers.

In the soft lamplight, Tony was so beautiful that Bucky physically ached. “May I kiss you?” Bucky asked.

Tony slanted a look at him, so quickly Bucky almost missed it. “You may do whatever it pleases you to do with your property,” he said, and then his lips pressed together. “I’m a slave,” he continued, blunt and harsh. “You don’t have to seduce me if you want to fuck me.” He squared his shoulders and, staring straight ahead at the wall, began to unlace his tunic with fingers that trembled.

Bucky caught Tony’s hands and stilled them, clasped them as best he could with his own hand. “I don’t want to fuck you,” he said, knowing Tony would never believe him. “I want your heart.”

Tony laughed at that, short and bitter. “Are you  _deranged_?” he demanded. “I’m a  _slave_.”

“You weren’t born a slave,” Bucky said stubbornly. “And you didn’t stop being a person when you gave up your freedom. The gods brought us together. I won’t piss on their gift. I won’t so much as kiss you until you tell me it’s what you want.”

“And if I never want it?” Tony challenged, pulling his hands free with an angry jerk.

“Then I will never kiss you.” The thought made Bucky’s heart ache. Tony stared, one hand holding the other against his chest as if Bucky’s touch had burned him, and Bucky knew that he was thinking this was madness. Citizens – especially patricians – did not  _woo_  slaves to love them, any more than they courted chairs to hold their weight.

Bucky half-wondered if he was losing his mind, himself, but the  _rightness_  of it settled in his bones. “Until you tell me you want it,” he repeated. He nudged Tony off the couch and stretched out, pillowing his head on his arm. “You may go seek your own rest,” he said, closing his eyes.

Tony did not move for a long moment. Then Bucky heard the soft pat of bare feet on the floor, and the soft creak of his door’s hinges as it closed, and he was left alone.

_***_

_(Three Years Later)_

Tony sat on a stool in the kitchen, eating his breakfast and watching Cook prepare Bucky’s tray. “Market day,” she said when she saw him watching.

He nodded and swallowed a mouthful of hot mash. “I’ll bring you the money after breakfast. Will you need me?”

She hummed thoughtfully as she arranged bread and cheese. “He’ll need you more,” she decided. “I’ll hire a boy to carry.”

Tony nodded, and washed his breakfast down with a gulp of watered beer. “Tray done?”

“Just,” she said, handing it to him. He was halfway through the door when she added, “Tony?”

He paused, looking back over his shoulder.

She looked uncertain, then made up her mind with a jerk of her chin. “He’d free you if you asked, you know.”

“I know,” Tony said, and ducked out before she could pursue the matter.

Bucky  _would_  probably free him if he asked – but then what? Move into a tiny, dark firetrap of an apartment in the crowded tenements where the other freed slaves and poor citizens lived? Go back to Greece? Neither appealed, and either way, he’d never see Bucky again.

Tony wasn’t sure when “seeing Bucky” had become one of his criteria for happiness, but it was hard to deny, now. It had been for a while, and he no longer knew why he hadn’t yet asked Bucky to bed him.

At first, it had been genuine unwillingness. But the longer he served Bucky, the more Tony began to understand that his master was exactly as thoughtful, fair, and honest as he had seemed that first night – and not only with Tony, but with everyone he met. As time passed, Tony’s fears had morphed into caution, his caution grown into grudging respect, and his respect bloomed into genuine admiration. By then, his continuing refusal was mostly curiosity: how long would Bucky wait?

Three years later, it seemed the answer was, indeed, forever. Or at least, longer than  _Tony_ could wait. His thoughts were turning more often to his master lately – Bucky’s warmth at Tony’s back as they worked together in Bucky’s office. The soft, longing look in Bucky’s eyes when they fell on Tony. The feel of Bucky’s hand on his shoulder.

Last night he had dreamt of Bucky’s mouth on his throat, of Bucky’s hand gripping his hip, and in the dream he had sobbed and begged for more. He’d woken gasping for breath, soaked with sweat and so hard it hurt.

Tony pushed open the door to Bucky’s room. Bucky was awake, though still sleepy-lidded. He broke into a smile when he saw Tony, and the soft morning light made him look like something otherworldly, so beautiful that it was Tony’s privilege merely to catch a glimpse.

Tony froze, dumbfounded.

Bucky’s happy expression faded into concern. “Tony? Are you all right?”

Bucky’s voice jolted Tony into action. He set the breakfast tray on the table and dropped to his knees, reaching out in supplication.

Bucky reached out readily, letting Tony hold his hand like a lifeline. “What is it? Tony, tell me what’s wrong.”

“Kiss me,” Tony whispered.

Bucky’s eyes rounded in surprise.

“Please,” Tony begged. “I want it.”

“Tony,” Bucky breathed. “You don’t–”

“I need it,” Tony said. “I need  _you_. Please.”

The word barely left his lips before Bucky’s mouth was on his, frantic with a desperation Tony could only match. Tony fumbled his hands onto Bucky’s shoulders, clutching at the thin undertunic, groaned with relief when Bucky’s arm circled his waist to draw him closer. Why had he waited so long, why?

“Please,” Tony gasped into the kiss, not certain what he was asking for, and not caring.

“Yes,” Bucky said, leaning his forehead against Tony’s so they were panting the same air. “Yes, anything you want, anything you– I’m yours, Tony. I have been since the moment I laid eyes on you. The gods gave me to you, Tony. I’m  _yours_.”

“They gave us to each other,” Tony corrected, and leaned in to kiss Bucky again, gentle and exploring. “Fortuna smiles,” he whispered. “I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awesome art by the amazing [Auripigmentum](http://auripigmentum.tumblr.com/), originally [posted at imaginetonyandbucky](http://imaginetonyandbucky.tumblr.com/post/144757194161/)!


	5. 18 Apr 2016: Superhero Therapy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** T  
>  **Prompt:** Group therapy session, but everyone wears masks (i.e. their superhero alter egos) so that's it's anonymous. And cue identity porn. It's obvious to Tony everyone knows each other from their familiarity with one another, but he's the new guy/kinda left out. I pictured Sam leading the sessions. Everyone is still everyone, just no superheroing. -Anonymous  
>  **Warnings:** None

“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done,” Tony said, his voice muffled by the gaudily-painted motorcycle helmet he was wearing. It had a long, easily-visible crack on the side. “And if you’d ever googled me, you’d know just how dumb that is.”

Sam, standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, just grinned. “Give it a try for a few weeks,” he said, not for the first time. “It can take a little getting used to, but a lot of my folks find it’s easier to talk about their issues if they distance themselves a bit, and make them their  _character’s_  issues. Talking about your issues is a lot easier when you can pretend they’re villains you’re facing as the superhero, Iron Man.”

Tony tipped up the helmet’s faceplate to give Sam an unimpressed look. “Iron Man? Really? If it’s made of iron, why is it mostly red? Is it rusting from Iron Man’s copious tears?”

Sam grinned and handed Tony a card that looked – oh god – like a baseball stats card, with his “hero” powers. “You’re not going to score a hit on me,” Sam warned him. “This workshop helps a lot of people.”

Tony groaned and shoved the card into his pocket. “Is this because I confessed that I played Dungeons and Dragons once at school? Or– This is punishment, isn’t it?” he demanded. “It’s punishment for that time I told you about my sexy roleplay shenanigans.”

“I’ve been running this workshop twice a month for three years,” Sam said. He reached out to flick Tony’s visor shut again. “But yeah, maybe a little bit of punishment. I keep telling you, I ain’t that kind of therapist.”

***

It was the weirdest group session Tony had ever heard of: half group therapy, half improv acting class. The rest of the group had obviously been doing this for a while. They made frequent references to elaborate backstories and “villains” they’d faced down together, had catch phrases and battle-cries, and a couple of them had even made costumes for themselves more elaborate than Sam’s dimestore discard dress-up masks.

It was even cornier than Tony had expected, but after he’d been watching and listening for a while, he had to admit it was kind of fun.

The tiny woman with the black-and-gold costume and the sparkly gold domino mask jumped straight into character, pretending to fly on her gauze-and-gossamer wings to perch on Tony’s shoulder and introduce herself as “The Wasp”.

The thin, soft-spoken guy in the green monster mask talked haltingly about his anger issues. He had trouble staying in character; he talked about his “hero” as if it was a separate identity from himself. The others seemed to just go with it.

At least he wasn’t dressed in what looked like a remaindered Fourth of July novelty tablecloth. Tony didn’t laugh out loud, though; guy was huge and buff (and pretty hot, though his hoodie-mask-cowl thing hid most of his face except for his exceptionally blue eyes and a nice smile).

“Captain America” seemed to be good friends with a red-haired woman whose superhero color scheme was “black, accented with darker black” and a few gold bracelets. She told Tony to call her “Black Widow”. On her other side was “Hawkeye”. He was slouched in his chair, dressed in the gaudiest purple Tony had ever seen, and spent the whole meeting twirling an arrow in his fingers like a drumstick. Tony couldn’t quite work out if the arrow was a prop for the guy’s superhero character, or a stim toy, or what. He had damn fine arms and shoulders, though, and  _damn_ , but Tony needed to get laid soon. He was developing a one-track mind.

Tony was beginning to introduce himself and haltingly fill in his “origin story” (he’d turned Obie into a trusted advisor who’d tried to have him assassinated, which sounded way cooler than corporate sabotage – maybe there was something to this dumb schtick of Sam’s after all) when the door burst open to reveal a new guy, done up in almost as much black leather as the Widow, though with some rather intriguing straps that made Tony’s hindbrain sit up and take notice. He had a weird mask that obscured the bottom half of his face, but left his eyes visible, which seemed backwards to Tony. The guy had a prosthetic arm, but the rest of him, from what Tony could tell, was  _smoking_  hot – not quite as built as Captain America, but with a hint of menacing swagger that more than made up for it.

“Sorry,” the guy said as he dropped into the empty chair. “My boss– Uh, I mean the Russian mob detained me. I had to fight my way out.” He leaned across Wasp to offer his hand to Tony. “Hey, I’m Bu- er, the Winter Soldier.”

Tony took the hand, but looked at Sam. “How come  _he_  gets a cool name?”

“‘Cause he’s my favorite,” Sam deadpanned. “Go on with your story, Iron Man.”

“Iron Man?” the Winter Soldier said. “I hope that’s not false advertisement.” His eyes slid down Tony’s body suggestively, lingering in all the right places, and when they lifted back to Tony’s – well, helmet – his eyes crinkled with what was undoubtedly a leering smirk.

Despite himself, even knowing his own smile was hidden by the helmet, Tony shot back, “If you’re looking for iron, sweetheart, you’ve come to the right place.”

***

The Winter Soldier continued to flirt outrageously with Tony at every meeting, and Tony flirted right back. The others rolled their eyes, especially Captain America, who turned out to be Winter’s best friend in real life, too. But no one seemed to actually mind it – they even folded it into their ongoing stories. It was freeing to know that the flirtation wasn’t some ploy to manipulate Tony, and that it wasn’t going to go anywhere, because they didn’t even know each other’s real names.

It was, hands-down, the corniest, weirdest therapy Tony had ever tried – and he had tried a lot of different things to try to get his issues under control. But as Sam had said, it was somehow easier to talk about how the Warmonger had schemed to trap Iron Man in a burning building or kidnap him to a desert lair than it was to explain how his trust issues had screwed up yet another relationship or soured another business deal.

And despite the hokey masks and cartoonish villains, Tony couldn’t help but empathize with the others’ struggles with their particular demons. As the months passed, he began to piece together their real stories and problems, and tried not to wonder how much they were figuring out about his. Slowly, he began to realize, even this guarded talk was weaving them together. Their superhero personas were a team, even friends, and in a weird way, even though the only name Tony knew was Sam’s, he had begun to think of them as  _his_ friends as well, even if only during these sessions.

***

Tony stood in the hallway and looked at the door to the meeting room. The helmet muffled sound, but he could hear Wasp’s determinedly-cheerful voice, followed by the low murmur of Captain America. He put his hand on the door frame and leaned heavily against it. How could he do it? How could he go in there and face them? Knowing he had failed, knowing he didn’t belong among them. He was no kind of hero, even in his head.

He should go, but even as he straightened to turn, the door jerked open and Hawkeye reared back in surprise a hairsbreadth before he walked right into Tony. “Hey, you made it!” Hawkeye said, recovering. “I was just gonna take a leak, but you should go in, your boyfriend’s sulking–”

“Fuck you, Hawkeye,” the Winter Soldier drawled.

Hawkeye smirked and edged past Tony, beelining for the restroom. In the room, everyone had turned to look at him. Those with half-masks were smiling in welcome – Winter’s eyes were crinkled – and Tony had to swallow back a surge of bile. They wouldn’t be so welcoming when they knew what he’d done.

Tony’s face was hidden, but Sam was far too good at body language. “Come on in,” he said, a gentle command that made Tony’s feet move without thought. “Want to tell us what kept you?”

“I–” Tony let Sam lead him to his usual chair, but he couldn’t finish, couldn’t bear to see their disappointment, their judgement.

“Was it a villain?” Sam prodded after a moment.

Tony nodded miserably. “Madam Masque,” he said, the seductive but evil persona he’d given his alcoholism. “She was waiting for me when I got home last night, and I.” His throat closed on the words. He’d drunk himself into a stupor, and spent the whole morning feeling like death warmed over, rousing from the haze of self-hatred and hangover only when his reminder alarm for the group meeting had chimed.

“Go on,” the Hulk said, calm voice at odds with the mask’s angry sneer. “We’ve all been there.”

The Black Widow nodded. “You have to let it out.”

“I… She won,” Tony managed. “I gave in, she–” Tears tickled their way down Tony’s face and he tried to scrub them from his face with one arm, only to be deterred by the helmet.

Suddenly, it was too much, too confining, hot and humid and unbearable. Tony lurched to his feet and bolted for the door, ignoring the others calling for him.

Just down the hall was Sam’s private office, where he held the individual counseling sessions. The door was standing open, so Tony dashed in and slammed the door behind him. He ripped off the helmet and threw it onto the sofa, then crumpled to the floor, wedging himself into the corner between Sam’s desk and the wall and drawing his knees up to his chest. He wrapped his arms over his head and let the sobs shake their way loose.

It wasn’t exactly a surprise when the door opened a few minutes later. Tony kept his head down, hoping whoever it was – Sam, most likely – would take the hint and go back to the group.

The door closed, a quiet click, and the rustle and creak of cloth and leather came closer, and then scraped against the wall as they sat down next to him, close enough that Tony could feel body heat. Tony pulled his arms tighter around his head, his helpless crying redoubling.

An arm wrapped around his shoulder, tentative at first, and then, when Tony didn’t shake it off, more firmly, tugging Tony to lean against a broad chest under a – huh, a leather jacket. It wasn’t Sam, then, but the Winter Soldier.

The surprise of that seemed to help stem the flow of Tony’s tears, and after a few minutes, he was finally able to breathe a little better.

“I wanted it,” Tony whispered. “I looked, and I thought, this is a bad idea, but I didn’t care. I wanted it. How am I supposed to…” He waved a hand helplessly, but Winter just squeezed his shoulder.

“When I first came here,” Winter said after a while, “I thought I was the problem, the villain. That I was a part of Hydra.” Hydra was Winter’s biggest villain – and Captain America’s, too. “It controlled all my actions,” Winter said, “but I’d  _given_  it that control. I wasn’t fighting it. It took me a long time to realize that I was a prisoner, not an accomplice.”

His voice was soft and clear, and Tony realized he’d taken off his mask. Tony was torn between wanting to look up, to see the face of the man he’d been flirting with for months, and wanting to stay right where he was, held and protected.

“Sometimes we lose the fight,” Winter said. “Sometimes they’re too strong for us, and they win. It sucks when that happens, you know?”

Tony nodded a little, slowly lowering his arms to fold across his stomach.

“But that doesn’t make us the villains,” Winter continued. “And what makes us heroes is that we’re going to get back up and face them down again tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. As long as it takes, until they stop coming around and causing trouble.”

A huff of laughter escaped Tony’s lips. “You know we’re not actually superheroes, right?” The hint of humor fell away as he said, “Iron Man being seduced by a sexy villainess isn’t nearly as ugly as Tony crawling back into the bottle.”

Winter’s shoulders rippled, but he didn’t let go of Tony. “Yeah, well, the Winter Soldier trying to slip the grasp of another Hydra cell is a million times more badass than Bucky struggling not to reach for the pills again, and Captain America punching out the Red Skull is way cooler than my buddy remembering to call me or Sam after he’s had a flashback. None of our problems are glamorous in real life.”

Tony squeezed his eyes closed. “At least you’re fighting it. I just gave in and–”

“Hey.” Winter – or Bucky, Tony guessed – shook him a little. “Hey. Tony, right? Tony. Sometimes we fail. It happens. You can’t take that back. The win/loss record is what it is, yeah? Took me a while to get to where I could accept that, but I’m telling you: you can’t take it back. All you can do is promise to fight harder next time.” He hesitated. “Maybe… call on someone for a team-up, y'know?”

Tony looked up, finally. Bucky’s expression shifted from grave and concerned to open-mouthed shock in an instant. “Holy shit, you’re even hotter than I thought,” he blurted, and then clapped his hand over his mouth. “Shit, brain-to-mouth filter, way to fuck me over again,” he groaned, the words muffled by his hand.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” Tony said, and then promptly burst into laughter. A second later, Bucky joined in, and they leaned together, shoulder-to-shoulder, laughing only somewhat hysterically.

When it finally died down, Bucky twisted to pull his cellphone from his jacket pocket. “I mean it, though,” he said. “If you need someone to talk you down, you can call me.” His lips quirked into a half-deprecating smirk. “I mean, if Iron Man had a boyfriend, maybe Madam Whatsherface would be easier to resist.”

“Masque,” Tony supplied, knowing it was irrelevant, but he pulled out his own phone. “And I just might take you up on that.”

When they’d traded numbers, Bucky rolled to his feet with enviable ease, and reached down to pull Tony up as well. “Come on, let’s get back in there and let 'em know we’re gonna keep fighting the good fight.”

“Yeah,” Tony sighed and reached for his helmet. “Uh, that stuff about a boyfriend… that was. I mean, you just meant in the, you know, in  _there_. Right?”

“Of course,” Bucky said, adjusting the fit of his own mask.

Tony nodded, telling himself that it was ridiculous to feel disappointed or rejected.

Bucky hesitated, hand on the doorknob. “Though… If you wanted to use my number for something other than moral support? I think I might like that.” He opened the door and walked back down the hall toward the meeting room, and Tony didn’t think he was imagining a little extra sway to Bucky’s hips.

Tony looked down at his helmet, ridiculous re-painted old motorcycle helmet that it was, and then pulled it over his head.

He’d never felt more like a superhero.

  
  


 


	6. 30 May 2016: Ace Soulmates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** T  
>  **Prompt:** Soulmate AU of any kind (names words whatever), but Tony or Bucky or both are on the ace spectrum. They think the other will hate them because they don’t do sex, or doesn’t feel romantic love. They don’t actively find their soulmate so as not to disappoint them, but it turns out the partner feels the same or is completely okay with no sex/romantic love. -lordrebeccasama  
>  **Warnings:** None

It was Natasha who figured it out, because of course it was.

There had been some kind of PR event, and a pretty socialite half Tony’s age had swayed up to him and pressed her artificially ample breasts against his arm as she breathed warm and moist against his ear. Tony had disengaged with his usual charm and poise, but as he’d sent the girl on her way, he’d spotted Natasha watching him from across the room and given her a lazy, two-fingered salute. He hadn’t missed the way her eyes widened slightly and her jaw went slack, just for a second, at whatever she’d seen on his face.

She found him later, sitting on the landing pad and watching the way the city lights sparkled and danced through the crystal of his tumbler of scotch.

She settled down next to him, dangling her feet over the edge of the platform without a single hint of unease. “You never really enjoyed it, did you?” she asked softly, barely audible over the wind and the hum of the city.

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “No, not really.”

“Then why?”

He shrugged. “There were certain advantages to having a reputation as a playboy, when I was younger.”

Natasha nodded, and scooted a bit closer, until her thigh was pressed against his. “Well, now I know why trying to seduce you didn’t work,” she said wryly.

Tony huffed. “That, and because I was dying at the time.” She shivered, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, let her lean into his warmth.

She took the glass from his hand and sipped from it, humming softly at the quality, then passed it back. When he took it, she tapped his wrist, where a tasteful cuff hid his Mark. “Is that why you wear this?”

Tony tossed back a swallow of the scotch, letting it burn down his throat. “Among other reasons,” he agreed. “Who wants a soulmate who doesn’t want to mate?”

She rubbed her thumb over her own Mark. “If they’re really your soulmate,” she started, but Tony shook his head.

“No. It’s better this way.”

She didn’t argue the point, which was one reason Tony liked her. They fell silent, then, watching the lights.

***

Tony locked the workshop door and leaned against it, heart racing.

After a few minutes, when it became obvious that no one was going to try to follow him right away, he pushed himself upright and made his way unsteadily toward the locker where he kept the first aid box and – more importantly – a change of clothes.

The villain of the week had flooded the room with a gas that instantly disintegrated all non-organic material. Natasha’s Bites: poof.  Clint’s high-tech arrows: poof. Sam’s wings: poof. Wanda’s jacket, which turned out to be fake leather instead of the real deal: poof. Vibranium proved resistant, thank Tesla, so Steve’s shield and Bucky’s new Wakandan-made arm had survived, but everyone’s weapons and high-tech armor: poof. Tony’s armor: poof.

And half a second later, his undersuit: poof. It was a good thing his life no longer depended on an electromagnet embedded in his chest.

Almost the whole team was left at least partially naked, not that that stopped the more experienced members of the crew. Tony, luckily, had been wearing cotton boxer-briefs because the new undersuit had a slight chafing issue.

Less luckily, his cuff had poofed along with the other clothes, and as he’d turned to check on the others, to make sure no one had been seriously hurt, he’d spotted Bucky’s eyes widening, focus zeroed in on Tony’s wrist.

Tony hadn’t been able to help glancing at Bucky’s wrist as well, newly-exposed, and– well. Of course it was a matching Mark. Because of  _course_  it was.

So much for the theory that soulmates were automatically compatible, because Tony had heard all about Barnes’ youth, a new girl on his arm every week, practically.

Despite being naked and unarmed, Clint and Natasha had already grabbed the whackjob in charge, so Tony had made some excuse and fled. The longer he put off  _that_ uncomfortable conversation, the better.

Tony snarled to himself, yanking on the old, well-worn jeans from his locker with more force than necessary. Why now? He’d finally started to get comfortable with the team, to think of them as family again. And now this. He pulled on the t-shirt and picked up the spare cuff, but didn’t put it on. He slumped onto the workbench stool instead and stared down at his Mark, rubbing at it idly with his thumb.

He’d been so hopeful and excited as a kid, before he’d realized he was going to be just as much of a disappointment to his soulmate as he was to everyone else. He’d considered just faking his way through it – he didn’t  _mind_  sex, most of the time, he just didn’t  _want_  it. But every partner he’d kept for more than a week or so had figured out his disinterest. There was no way he’d be able to hide it from his soulmate.

From  _Bucky_.

God, why did it have to be Bucky? He  _liked_  Bucky, these days, now that they’d worked through the ugliness of their first meeting. More than liked, truth be told; Tony was nurturing a ridiculous crush, in fact, and had been perfectly content to keep it that way. But now that Tony  _knew_ , there was no way he’d be able to stop seeing all the ways they fit together… in every way but this one.

By the time Bucky knocked on the workshop door, two hours later, Tony had braced for the inevitable. “Let him in, J,” he sighed, and didn’t let himself look up when he heard the door open. “That took longer than I expected,” he said, and it came out almost evenly.

Bucky’s footsteps halted just inside the workshop, and Tony heard him take a deep breath. “I thought you were runnin’ ‘cause you didn’t want me, at first. ‘Cause of, y'know, how we met, and all the horrible shit I did for Hydra. Couldn'ta blamed you for that, I guess. But Tasha came and talked to me, and she told me you hadn’t wanted to find your match, ‘cause of the way you are.  …I know it was a secret, kinda, but don’t be mad, okay?”

“Why would I be mad?” Tony made himself say. “You’re the one who’s been cheated. But I can’t keep up that lie. Not even for… I’m sorry. You deserve better.”

“I don’t want you to lie, Tony. I love you the way you are.”

It hurt to hear, more than Tony had expected. “You said she told you,” he grated. “You know I’m not, you can’t just–”

“I’m trying to tell you,” Bucky interrupted, suddenly much closer. His hand – not the Marked one, but the metal one, the  _safe_  one, reached into Tony’s field of view and closed gently over his wrist, hiding his Mark. “It’s okay, Tony.”

Tony shook his head. “No. You think you won’t mind, but let me tell you, somewhere down the line you’re going to really resent it, and I–”

“Tony,” Bucky huffed. “If you could shut up for just a second, you’d hear me telling you that I’m the same way, dummy.”

Tony’s head lifted as if on a marionette’s string. “If I’m not going to lie, you can’t, either.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Steve tells stories about your old girlfriends all the time,” Tony pointed out.

Bucky met his gaze steadily. “An’ how many folks’ve  _you_  been with? Don’t mean a thing, ‘cept I like dancing,” he said. “But I never stayed with anyone long enough to get much past kissin’. Never really wanted to. ‘Sides, I’m not that guy anymore.”

Tony swallowed, hard. Hope was a hard thing to kill, but every time it rose up again, it had more barbs and sharp edges to cut him with. “You… really don’t want to sleep with me?” Part of him thought it should be vaguely insulting, but all he could feel was the beginnings of relief.

“Oh, I wanna sleep with you, all right,” Bucky corrected. “I wanna hold you, I wanna see what you look like when you’re finally still and quiet for a change.” His lips curved into a teasing smirk that Tony somehow couldn’t help but echo. Then the amusement faded from Bucky’s expression. “I do love you,” he said seriously. “I’ve been in love with you for months, and didn’t want to say anything 'cause– well, for the same reason as you, I guess. I don’t want to have sex, with you or anyone else. Never have. But I want to be with you. I want you to be mine, and I want to be yours. If that’s what you want.”

The hint of uncertainty in Bucky’s voice jolted Tony out of his daze of shock. “Yes,” he said quickly. “I definitely want.” He laced his fingers through Bucky’s where they were still lying along his cheek, then pulled Bucky’s hand away to look down at the Mark there, the Mark that matched his own so precisely.

Eyes on Bucky’s, Tony pressed his lips to Bucky’s Mark. Bucky’s breath caught, then stuttered out raggedly. Tony released Bucky’s hand and turned his arm to show his own Mark, extended in offering. “I want,” he said. “Please.”

Swallowing hard, Bucky’s fingers skated down the inside of Tony’s arm before finally closing on his forearm, gripping firmly to press their Marks together, and Tony’s world dissolved into a golden glow of warmth and light as their bond formed.

 

 


	7. 12 Jun 2016: A Dragon and His Prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** G  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Prompt:** OK but have you imagined dragon/dragon shifter Bucky and his 'kidnapped' prince Tony living in harmony and when months/years later a knight/hero/whatever tries to save him what he found was Tony  & Bucky living in Bucky's cozy cave/castle comfortably like an old married couple. -Anonymous

The knight strode into the hall, the crowd of courtiers and dignitaries parting with a susurration of dismay. The helmet under her arm was crushed on one side, the crest on her chestplate blackened from fire, and three parallel gouges a full hand-span apart ran down the length of her back. Most tellingly, she had returned as she had left, alone, without the captured prince. Natasha ignored the whispers and kept her eyes fixed on the royal dais at the head of the room.

King Howard frowned as she approached. “Ser Romanov,” he rumbled, “report.”

Natasha bowed. “Your Highness, I tracked the dragon to its home, but the beast is more cunning than we had anticipated. It had anticipated a rescue, and attacked before I even reached the mouth of its lair. Alone, I was not strong enough to overcome it. It snatched up the prince and fled on wings far faster than my steed could match.”

The queen moaned in despair, hands flying to cover her mouth. “Did you see him? Does my son yet live?”

Natasha nodded gravely to Queen Maria. “I was unable to get close enough to gauge his health, but he was without question still alive… At least, so far.” She looked back at the king. “Your Highness, this failure weighs heavily upon me. I should like to redeem it. Allow me to take Ser Rogers, Ser Barton, and Alchemist Banner. We will find the dragon’s new lair and save the prince – or avenge him.”

The king’s chief advisor, Duke Stane, bent to whisper into his ear. King Howard nodded slowly, and set his jaw. “Very well,” he said after a moment. “But Ser Rogers will lead the expedition.”

That was hardly surprising; Ser Rogers was one of the king’s favorites, and Natasha had just admitted to failure. She bowed again in acceptance

Stane looked far too satisfied, she thought, but didn’t let it bother her. All that mattered was that they ride as soon as possible to Prince Anthony.

***

Natasha was in the stables, supervising the grooms as they readied the horses, when the prince’s chamberlain, Lady Potts, found her. Potts wasted no time getting to the point, which Natasha appreciated. “Is he happy?”

Natasha gave her a hard look. “He’s been captured by a dragon.”

Combat-hardened knights had been known to quail under one of Natasha’s glares, but Lady Potts waved one hand as if brushing aside a fly. “If the dragon had actually gotten close enough to singe your armor like that,” she said, too quiet for the grooms to overhear, “you’d have been cooked. And I  _know_  Tony. I’ve been managing his accounts and his staff since before he came of age. So I’ll ask you again: is he happy?”

Natasha studied the stubborn set of Potts’ jaw, the calm determination in her eyes, and then nodded, once. “Happier than I’ve ever seen him here at court,” Natasha admitted. “This dragon is… more than he seems. He values the prince highly. More, I might venture, than does the king.”

Lady Potts drew a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Her lips curved, and Natasha’s own seldom-used smile answered it. “Good,” Potts said, and then again, with a decisive nod, “good.” Her head cocked to the side. “And the others?”

Natasha shrugged, just a bit. “Chafing under the duke’s influence,” she said, even quieter than before, “and in need of a wiser master.”

Potts glanced back toward the castle, then lifted her chin in understanding. She stepped back and raised her voice to a more normal volume. “Good luck,” she said. “Please tell Prince Anthony, when you find him, that I have missed him these last months, but that Ser Rhodes and I are keeping his house in good order.”

“I shall,” Natasha agreed. “Be of stout heart,” she added. “With luck, you will see him again soon.”

Ser Rogers, after all, was determined to convince the dragon to help them restore justice to the kingdom, and Ser Rogers was often surprisingly persuasive.

 

 


	8. 19 Jun 2016: No Pressure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** T  
>  **Warnings:** Possible trigger warning for perceived/anticipated pressure to have sex.  
>  **Prompt:** imagine tony never was that into having sex but just let men fuck him because it was drilled into his head by his father that he shouldn't be weak and to stop complaining about things and then hearing the same from Obi who used to say the same things while he would fuck tony. so tony never said no and then he meets Bucky who treats him right and is a gentleman who takes him on dates and give him flowers so he's confused but pleased.Bucky finds out about his past and worries he pressured tony! -Anonymous

“Thanks for stepping out with me tonight, Tony. I had a great time.”

“Me too,” Tony said, moderately surprised to realize that he meant it. Bucky had been charming and witty and funny, and had kept his attention riveted on Tony for the whole night, had actually listened to what Tony had said and asked intelligent questions, and somewhere along the line, Tony had actually relaxed and let himself enjoy the evening instead of bracing himself for what was coming afterward.

Of course, now they were back in the Tower and the elevator was climbing toward Tony’s suite, so he supposed it was time to pay the piper. Tony fixed his smile in place as the door opened and waited for Bucky to steer him out of the elevator and toward the bedroom.

But Bucky just smiled and said, “Can I kiss you?”

Tony blinked. “What?”

Bucky rubbed the back of his neck. “Too fast? Sorry, I didn’t mean–”

“No,” Tony interrupted, “no, don’t be ridiculous, I just… I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that before.”

“Oh.” Bucky looked back up at him, almost bashful. “So… can I?”

Tony suspected that if he refused, Bucky probably wouldn’t even try to argue his case. It was obviously some sort of old-fashioned date etiquette, even though Bucky was integrating with modern life pretty seamlessly most of the time. But Tony hadn’t even tried to say no since he’d been a teenager, and he’d gone to bed with a lot of guys he liked way less than Bucky. “Yes, of course.”

It would be worth it, Tony thought, just for the way Bucky’s face lit up with pleasure.

Bucky closed the space between them, his metal hand coming to rest gently – almost gingerly – at Tony’s waist. His lips brushed Tony’s, feather-light, then came back, slightly firmer but not demanding or urgent.

And oh,  _oh_ , that was… that was actually nice, better than nice, that was  _good_ , and Tony’s stomach dropped like he was on a roller coaster, in the best way. He let his jaw fall loose, ready to open his mouth, to let Bucky in–

Bucky pulled back and drew a hard breath, eyes dark. He cupped Tony’s jaw in his warm hand and leaned in for another kiss, slow and soft, and when it ended, that drop in Tony’s stomach had turned into a whole field’s worth of butterflies.

Bucky let go and stepped back, hands closing and opening restlessly. “That was… wow, that was somethin’. Even better than I imagined it. Uh, so… Thanks, Tony. Have a good night.”

Tony hadn’t expected that, even allowing for that old-fashioned etiquette. It made him feel strangely off-center and unsettled. “You’re… not coming in? I promise, there’s not a metal detector on the bedroom door, and you’re well over the minimum height limit for this ride, so what’s up, Buttercup?”

There was that bashful grin again, and a shrug. “Just don’t seem respectful.”

Tony snorted. “Respect is the last thing I’d expect at this point.”

“Then it’s that much more important that you get it, I figure.” Bucky’s grin widened. “Maybe next time, doll, if that’s what you want.”

So there would be a next time; Tony hadn’t somehow screwed it up and turned Bucky away. He knew better than to show it, however, so he smirked as he backed out of the elevator. “You grandpas and your old-fashioned rules.”

Bucky shrugged, unrepentant. “Not everything old is bad,” he said, just before the door closed. Tony watched the display panel until the elevator stopped on the floor Bucky shared with Steve and Natasha, trying to reconcile his feelings of relief and exhilaration and disappointment.

***

Bucky did come in after their next date, but only as far as the couch, where they made out like teenagers, which Tony hadn’t done even when he  _was_ a teenager. And despite the way Bucky’s hands slid hungrily over Tony’s back and shoulders and arms, they carefully avoided going anywhere near his crotch.

The suspense was driving Tony nuts. Better to get it over with, he thought, and pushed his own hand down Bucky’s chest, down the flat stomach, down–

Bucky caught him by the wrist and pulled it away. “No need to be in such a rush, doll.” Bucky’s breath tickled Tony’s neck and made him shiver. “Relax and enjoy it, huh?”

Tony suppressed a wince and a shudder.  _Just relax and enjoy it_  was something he’d heard before, though usually in somewhat more advanced circumstances. He must have let some of his reaction bleed through, though, because Bucky pulled away, looking at him with mild concern. “You okay?”

Tony swallowed his discomfort a little harder this time. “Just want to make sure you’re getting everything you want,” he said, turning on the charm, letting the practiced playboy grin flash. “I’ve got a reputation to maintain, you know:  _never an unsatisfied customer_.”

Bucky chuckled, which was what Tony had intended, but he didn’t release Tony’s wrist, pulling it instead up to kiss Tony’s palm. “I’m plenty satisfied, doll,” he said. “Got to spend the whole evening with you, didn’t I? And what about what  _you_  want?”

How the fuck did Bucky keep surprising him like that? The easy lie sprang to Tony’s lips –  _I only want what you want, babe_  – but it was bitter on his tongue, and he kept it behind his teeth. Bucky deserved better.

“That’s another one of those things no one’s ever asked before, isn’t it?” Bucky said after a moment of silence. “Christ, doll, that’s–”

Tony twisted away from the sad look in Bucky’s eyes. “Don’t,” he said. “It’s not like I was raped. No one’s ever done anything to me that I haven’t consented to.”

Bucky’s lips pressed together. “Doesn’t sound like you much enjoyed it, though.”

“I’m a Stark,” Tony said sharply, setting his jaw. “Starks are made of iron. We do what we have to do, and we don’t break.”

Bucky’s expression morphed from angry to aghast. “Have to d– Tony, did you go out with me ‘cause you thought you  _had_  to? Did you not actually want  _any_  of this? Have you just been, what, fuck,  _enduring_  me?” Bucky covered his face with his hands as his voice cracked, a jagged rent of pain that tore into Tony’s chest.

“No. No, Bucky, I did. Don’t think that– I  _like_  you, okay, I want to be with you. And you haven’t– I haven’t done anything with you that I didn’t enjoy. Honestly.”

“But you would’ve, right?” Bucky said, voice muffled by his hands. “If I’d asked. Or even if I’d just  _let_  you.”

Tony scrambled for something to say, something that would make this right again. “It’s on me, anyway,” he tried. “My fault I don’t like it, I mean, Obie always said I was too wrapped up in my own head to–”

“ _Obie_?” Bucky interrupted, lifting his head to stare incredulously at Tony. “The guy who was your guardian, who should’ve  _protected_  you, but wound up selling your reputation, your good intentions, and your  _life_  to line his own pockets?  _That_  Obie?” Bucky was outright  _growling_. “Did it not occur to you that maybe some of the shit he told you was fucking twisted?”

Tony’s heart was racing. God, if he lost this, the best thing that had ever happened to him… “I’m sorry,” he said. “Bucky, I didn’t think, I–” He swallowed. “I’m sorry. What– how do I make it better?”

Bucky abruptly stood up and turned away. “That’s the problem, ain’t it?” Bucky said, his voice low and broken. “You’d do pretty much anything I asked, even if you hated it, and I can’t… I can’t do that to you, Tony. I don’t want to do anything with you that we aren’t both gonna enjoy. But I don’t know how to tell, now, what’s you  _wanting_  and what’s you just… letting it happen 'cause you think you can’t say no.”

Tony suppressed the urge to reach out, to touch. He folded his hands in his lap instead, staring down at his fingers. “I… don’t know how to fix that,” Tony admitted. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Is this– I mean. That’s a dealbreaker, I guess.”

Bucky was silent for a long moment. Tony had almost convinced himself to open his eyes again when he heard Bucky draw a breath. “I don’t want it to be,” he said softly. “I’m so, so gone on you, Tony. But I just… I need some time to think.”

Tony nodded. He’d heard that one before, too, and knew exactly what it meant.

***

He was in the workshop, elbow-deep in his latest armor, when he smelled food.  _Great_ , he thought.  _The pity party has arrived._  Probably Natasha, he guessed, though it was possible that Steve was feeling guilty over the breakup – not that two dates counted as a relationship, Tony reminded himself.

He thought about ignoring it and waiting for whoever it was to go away – he’d already done enough talking about his feelings, and look where that had gotten him. But his nose picked garlic out of the mixture, and his traitorous stomach growled. He sighed and closed the panel he’d been working on. “Fine,” he grumbled, “but I don’t want to talk ab–” He stuttered to a halt as he stood and turned to see Bucky leaning against the wall, holding a tray with not one but two steaming bowls. “What are you doing here?”

Bucky hefted the tray slightly. “You’ve been down here almost a whole day. Figured you could use some food while we talked.”

Christ, of course Bucky wanted to  _talk_  about it before breaking things off, instead of just avoiding Tony like a normal person would. Damn those grandpa morals. Tony steeled himself. “Fine,” he bit off. “Let’s get it over with.”

Bucky watched him warily as he walked to the workbench and cleared a spot for the tray. “Get what over with?”

Tony sank onto his stool with a sigh. “The Talk,” he said, giving it audible capital letters. “You know, the part where you tell me that We’ll Always Be Friends.” He shoved his fingers irritably through his hair, ignoring the grease on them.

Bucky came over slowly, putting the tray down with more care than was strictly necessary. “Seems to me you spend a lot of time just waiting to get things over with,” he said neutrally.

“Yeah, well. Welcome to my world,” Tony said. He wrapped a hand around the bowl on his side of the tray and tugged it closer. It was full of stew, rich with meat and vegetables. It smelled delicious, but Tony’s stomach was tying itself into knots.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Bucky said. Tony sniffed dismissively – when had he ever gotten anything he wanted without having to fight for it, tooth and nail? “Tony,” Bucky said, sounding exasperated.

Tony looked up with a flat glare. “What?”

Bucky glared right back, not giving ground at all. “What do you want?”

“World peace,” Tony shot back, suddenly angry. Angry at himself for getting his hopes up, angry at Bucky for giving him that opening, angry at the world for being so fucking unfair.

Bucky’s expression darkened, and then he forcibly relaxed, letting go of his answering irritation. “Damn it, Tony,” he said. “I’m  _tryin’_   to trust you, here, to work this out, but you gotta give me somethin’ to hang on to. So stop jerkin’ me around and tell me what. You.  _Want._ ”

“I want  _you_!” Tony all but yelled, then drew back in shock at himself. But Bucky just looked at him, waiting. “I want you to stay,” he said, aware that his voice was thin and uneven, and not caring. He pinched at the bridge of his nose, rubbed at eyes suddenly aching from too long without sleep. “I can’t… I can’t answer the question the way you want,” he continued. “I don’t  _know_  what I want. I haven’t considered it for so long, it’s… I don’t know.”

Bucky’s hand closed over his, tentatively, then more firmly when Tony didn’t brush it off. “Okay,” Bucky said. “That’s okay.”

“Is it?” Tony challenged, looking up.

Bucky wasn’t looking belligerent anymore, though. He was smiling, warm and hopeful, and something in Tony’s chest ached and twisted into a knot. “Sure,” Bucky said. “You don’t gotta know everything right off. Who does? But if we’re gonna do this, then I think we’ve gotta have some rules in place.”

Tony swallowed past the lump in his throat. “What kind of rules?”

Bucky squeezed his hand, and Tony turned his wrist to hold Bucky’s hand as well, aware that it felt like clinging to a lifeline, and not much caring. “I’m gonna trust you,” Bucky said, “to tell me what you want, or don’t want, or aren’t sure about. But that means you’ve gotta  _tell me_ , and you’ve gotta tell me the  _truth_ , Tony. I can’t… I can’t do this if I’m wondering if you secretly hate every touch.”

“I don’t,” Tony said quickly. “I like the way you touch me. I like kissing you.” He tried on a smile, and it didn’t feel too shaky. “I  _really_  like kissing you.”

Bucky’s answering smile made the knot in Tony’s chest loosen. “That’s good, doll,” he said. “I like that, too. So you’re gonna promise to tell me the truth about that, and I’ll do the same. An’ if you don’t know how you feel about a thing, then you gotta be honest about whether you want to give it a try or not. We’re not gonna do anything that both of us aren’t completely on board with, not ever. Okay?”

Tony frowned. “But what if you  _really_  want–”

“Not  _ever_ , Tony,” Bucky said, squeezing his hand a little tighter. “Ain’t nothing I want to do with you that’s more important to me than you bein’ able to trust me. 'Cause that’s the other rule. You gotta trust me, doll.”

“Of course I–”

“No,” Bucky said. “You really don’t. You thought I was gonna  _leave you_. I need you to know – to  _believe_  – that I’m not gonna make you do anything you don’t want to do, and I’m not gonna dump you just 'cause the word 'no’ is in your vocabulary.”

Tony turned that over in his head. It sounded so  _reasonable_ , put like that. Tony was well aware of his capability for self-sabotage, though. “I’ll… try,” he said. “I’m not… much in the habit of trusting people.”

“We’ll work on it,” Bucky promised. He lifted Tony’s hand and kissed the knuckles, then rubbed his cheek against them. “Together, we’ll work on it. And we’ll take things slow. Yeah?”

The knot in Tony’s chest dissolved into bright warmth. “Yeah. That, that sounds… perfect.”

  
  


 


	9. 27 Jun 2016: Gifts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** G  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Prompt:** Imagine Tony giving all the Avengers gifts (improvement to their armor, weaponry, etc) except for Bucky, who asks, and is answered with Tony panicking about how he just can't find the right thing to make for him. - aki-the-fangirl

About a month after Bucky came to live with the Avengers, Steve took him aside and said, “So, you and Tony seem to be getting along pretty well, huh?”

Bucky grinned. “Yeah, I guess so.” Tony was a wisecracking smartass who took all the shit the world dumped on him and threw right back on his own terms. Plus, despite multiple well-meant warnings about Tony’s love of new tech, he’d been respectful in the extreme about so much as looking at Bucky’s arm.

Steve nodded. “Good,” he said. “He’s a great guy, even if we don’t always see eye to eye.”

“Keeps you on your toes,” Bucky opined, and Steve rolled his eyes fondly.

“Now you sound like him. Anyway, I thought I should warn you about one of his… things.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows. They all had Things – few superheroes, it seemed, got into the business by being rational and well-adjusted people. And if they started that way, they certainly didn’t stay that way. Tony had more Things than most of them, it seemed. Maybe it was a byproduct of being a literal genius – Bucky remembered Howard being kind of twitchy about certain things, too, not that he’d ever say so to Tony, because Howard was one of  _Tony’s_  Things.

“It’s just… It’s easy to misinterpret,” Steve said, rubbing the back of his neck. “And I don’t want you to get the wrong impression right off, when you guys have been doing so well.”

“You gonna tell me what it is anytime today?” Bucky wondered.

Steve punched Bucky’s arm. “Jerk. It’s just, he. For people he likes, that he considers friends? He has this habit of giving… gifts.”

“You thought I needed to be warned about gifts?”

Steve’s shoulders rippled in a shrug. “They’re not small gifts, Buck. And at first, it looks like he’s trying to, I dunno, buy people’s friendship. Or maybe that he’s trying to impress them with his money or how smart he is. But that’s not really it at all.”

“What is it, then?”

“The more he likes someone,” Steve said, “the harder it is for him to ask for their attention and approval and affection. So he gives these gifts, and it’s his way of getting those things from us without having to ask. Mostly stuff he’s made or improved, though sometimes it’s things he buys.” Steve scowled briefly. “I get the impression that that’s Howard’s fault, but there’s not much I can do about that now. Just, you know. Go along with it, huh?”

“Sure,” Bucky agreed readily. “Guy does make some pretty impressive stuff, after all. Not like I’ll have to playact to be impressed. And it never hurts to be appreciative.” Bucky cocked his head. “So who’s ‘us’?”

“Pretty much the whole team,” Steve said. “You’ll see.”

***

Now that he’d been tipped off, Bucky  _did_  see. Tony worked ceaselessly, and every few days, he was emerging from his workshop with one marvel or another: trick arrows for Clint, improvements to Natasha’s bites and Sam’s wings, science equipment for Bruce, armor and weapons and field gear for the whole team. Thor had magic armor and weapons, but every time he visited – at least a couple of times a month – Tony had some liquor or delicacy he thought Thor would enjoy, or rare books of old Norse poetry and mythology that always made Thor laugh.

And it was nice to see the way the tension in Tony’s shoulders began to ease when they thanked him, threw an arm around him and steered him into a conversation, or gleefully demanded that Tony take them down to the range or the gym immediately to show off all the bells and whistles. Bucky liked seeing that, in fact, a little more than he probably should, and he had to admit (if only to himself) that he was developing a bit of a soft spot for the prickly engineer.

Which was a problem, because aside from the general gear upgrades, Tony had yet to make anything for Bucky. And if the gifts meant what Steve had said, well… that wasn’t too hard to interpret, was it? Tony was nice enough to Bucky, but didn’t particularly want his attention, either.

Bucky tried not to sulk about it.

***

Bucky tried to make himself avoid Tony, give himself some space to let his crush fade away and his thoughts settle, but he couldn’t seem to manage it. Time and time again, he found himself drawn back, irresistibly, even though he knew Tony didn’t even really want to be his  _friend_.

He told himself that after the things the Winter Soldier had done under Hydra’s command, he was lucky Tony was willing to even tolerate his presence, never mind let him live in the Tower and accept him as part of the team. It should have been enough.

But it wasn’t.

Bucky had been living in the Tower for a little more than a year when he finally broke. He was on Feed The Idiot Geniuses duty, and had not-entirely-coincidentally taken a route through the building that had taken him by Bruce’s lab and Jane’s office and even the new intern’s station before looping back toward Tony’s workshop last. Under the guise of making sure Tony actually ate, Bucky could stick around and watch for a while.  _Pine_ , he mocked himself, and then replied,  _shut up, asshole_.

Apparently, Tony had just reached a stopping-point when Bucky came in, because he looked up immediately and burst into a huge grin. “Bucky-bear! Is it lunchtime already?”

“Little past it, even,” Bucky chided gently, setting down the tray with its sandwich and fruit and sliding it along the worktable in Tony’s direction.

Tony scooped up the sandwich and took a gratifyingly large bite, swallowing it nearly unchewed with a gulp. “Good timing, though,” he said. “I was at a tricky point until just a couple of minutes ago; couldn’t’ve stopped even if I’d wanted to.”

“Aim to please,” Bucky responded lightly. “Whatcha workin’ on?”

Tony’s mouth was too full of sandwich to speak – and Bucky was so stupidly gone on Tony that it was  _cute_  – but he waved at a bank of holoscreens invitingly, and Bucky took a couple of steps closer to look.

Not that he could make heads or tails of the diagrams and equations and chemical formulas, but as soon as Tony had swallowed again, he explained, “Trying out some new things to string Clint’s bow with.”

Bucky hadn’t let his hopes get up very high, but they still seemed to fall a long way. “Yeah?” he said, though, pushing through it. It wasn’t as if it was less interesting just because it wasn’t something for Bucky.

“Yeah,” Tony said. “Parker came up with this great synthetic, and it’s a little too close to the work OsCorp’s doing to give it to the R&D department at SI – I don’t need to be on the wrong side a patent infringement suit this year; Pep would kill me – but it  _does_  have these really fascinating tensile properties, and I figured, hey, Clint’s about due for an upgrade anyway.”

“Sure,  _he_  gets an upgrade,” Bucky muttered, unable to keep the bitterness behind his teeth. He thought he’d said it low enough for Tony not to hear, but Tony turned to look at him with wide, startled eyes.

Bucky winced. “Shit, no, I didn’t mean– It’s not that I think–” He shut down the scrambling babble by pure force of will. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”

Tony’s head cocked to the side, just slightly. “How did you mean it, then?” He didn’t sound angry or defensive, just curious.

Bucky shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful for everything you’ve done, even if you’re just, y'know. Putting up with me for Steve’s sake.”

Tony’s mouth dropped open in surprise, but he recovered quickly, shoving his fingers through his hair and making it stand on end like an electrocuted cartoon. “JARVIS,” he said, “throw up Bucky’s file.” His eyes never left Bucky’s face, and they were full of some emotion Bucky couldn’t hope to decipher.

“I have a file?” Bucky asked.  _Dummy_ , he chided himself,  _of course you do. Notes on the arm, measurements for tac gear._

The holoscreen just behind Tony’s left shoulder flickered to life and filled with data. The arm and the measurements were there, sure, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. There was an incredibly precise rendering of both of his hands, in several positions – for custom-built weapons grips, he realized after a moment. There was a long column describing the Avengers actions Bucky had been in, his preferred tactics and weapons highlighted, as well as notes on even his minor injuries.

When Bucky’s eye reached the bottom of the monitor, JARVIS automatically scrolled it up for him – there was a whole other page noting his food preferences, the books he’d read and liked, the movies he’d watched, the entertainments he’d attended in the city.

Tony’s eyes were still on Bucky, watching closely – almost fearfully. He licked his lips. “I know it looks like some kind of stalker thing,” he said after a long moment of silence, “but I just. Everything I tried was… not good enough. Not for you.”

Bucky’s eyes snapped back to Tony’s face, questioning. Tony smiled, but it was false, plastic. Hiding something behind it, something vulnerable that he was afraid to let Bucky see. “Sorry if you’ve been feeling left out,” Tony said, trying for nonchalant, and if Bucky hadn’t gotten to know him so well, it might have been believable. “I just couldn’t decide. I want you to have it all.”

Bucky’s heart was hammering. “Well,” he said, with a forced casualness that was no more successful than Tony’s, “there  _is_  something you could give me to make up for it.”

Tony’s mouth suddenly twisted as if he was fighting a laugh. “If you say ‘a kiss,’ I’m not responsible for my actions,” he said. “That much cheese…”

“You love cheese,” Bucky returned.

“On  _sandwiches_ ,” Tony said. “But go on, tell me what it is you’d like from me.”

Bucky dared to take a step closer, and Tony’s mirth fell away as suddenly as it had come on. “An evening,” Bucky said. “Let me take you out.”

Tony stood up and stepped into Bucky’s space, close enough that Bucky could smell the machine oil and the meat from his sandwich. “All right,” he said. “Yes. About time. Also, I  _do_  have something for you,” he added.

“What’s that?” Bucky asked, or would have, if Tony hadn’t kissed him.

 


	10. 19 July 2016: Escape from Hydra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** T  
>  **Warnings:** Canon-typical torture scene (mostly offscreen)  
>  **Prompt:** Imagine Bucky works for Hydra and wants out. He sends out encrypted messages, which Tony recieves. Bucky doesn't really tell him who he is, but gives enough information, so after some distrust, they start plotting to get Bucky out. Tony gets captured by Hydra, but they don't know who the traitor is, yet. Bucky has to play along and seem loyal to Hydra and it hurts him to see Tony hate him, until he gets a moment to quietly tell Tony who he is and to play along. They plot to break out. -- massivespacewren

Tony wasn’t sure how long he’d been in the pitch dark. Not long enough for the bruises and scrapes he’d acquired during the kidnapping to start feeling any better, but long enough for the worst of the dizziness from whatever they’d drugged him with to fade. Long enough to have tested whatever they were using to keep his hands tied behind his back and found it immoveable. Long enough for him to have struggled to his feet and, leaning one shoulder against the wall, mapped the boundaries of his – cell? Yeah, let’s go with cell.

Eight feet square, more or less, with walls that felt like cinderblock and a floor of concrete. No vents or grates near the floor. The door was steel, and he’d heard the heavy clunk of the bolt locking it. Worst of all, he could just make out the faint hum of electronics near the ceiling, and since it definitely wasn’t lights, then he was betting on it being some sort of jamming device to keep him from sending any kind of signal to his team.

If the mysterious “J.B.” that he’d been corresponding with turned out to be bait for Tony after all, then he was well and truly fucked.

He had been pacing for a while in that odd mental space that occupied both terror and boredom when the deadbolt  _thunk_ ed and the door slammed open, searing light stabbing at his eyes and making them water. A hand closed around his arm like a vice, and by the time he’d blinked his eyes clear, he was being half-dragged, half-carried down the hall by a guy dressed all in black leather.

Tony tried to get his feet under him, but his escort’s implacable stride made it difficult. They finally pulled up sharply outside a door, and Leather Guy knocked twice before turning his head to look at Tony, who’d finally managed to stand up. He was wearing goggles and some kind of face mask that hid every nuance of expression. It was intimidating as fuck, but Tony wasn’t about to admit it.

Leather Guy said, “It will be easier for you if you tell them the truth.” His voice was soft, almost gentle, to Tony’s surprise; in his experience, muscle-bound goons tended to yell and snarl.

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” Tony said, rolling his eyes and facing the door. “I’m pretty much the poster child for doing things the hard way.”

Leather Guy took a breath as if he were going to reply, but the door opened, and he shoved Tony inside instead.

Another windowless room, though at least this one had lights. There was a chair in the middle, under the brightest light, covered with straps, and a drain on the floor surrounded by ominously dark stains. Tony’s stomach clenched, but he made himself focus on the man standing by the far wall, trying to memorize facial features before the glare of the interrogation light turned everything to shadows.

Leather Guy manhandled Tony into the chair. He was even stronger than Tony had expected; even the full force of Tony’s struggles barely swayed him, and certainly didn’t slow him down any.

The cuffs on Tony’s hands released, but before he could move, Leather Guy had pinned him down and was buckling the straps over his forearms.

“Look, I know what my Wikipedia page says,” Tony said, “and I give you full marks for atmosphere, but I’m really not into this leather-daddy bondage stuff anymore.”

Leather Guy ignored that, which Tony had more or less expected. He crouched to fasten the straps at Tony’s ankles. The interrogator stepped forward, but not far enough for Tony to see his face. “Unlike you, Mr. Stark, I feel no need to play games. We intercepted transmissions of yours directed at this facility. We would like to know why.”

“Try'na pick up chicks,” Tony said. “It’s that whole ‘bad girl’ thing. Sucks me in every time.”

Interrogator gestured, and Leather Guy punched Tony in the stomach.

It felt like getting hit with a car. All the wind left Tony’s lungs, and hurt like a bitch when he tried to breathe again. “Jesus fuck, is your whole fist made of metal?” he gasped, panting shallowly. Leather Guy didn’t respond, or even look at him with those creepy goggles.

“Now, let’s try this again, shall we, Mr. Stark?”

***

Interrogator finally sighed. “Perhaps you will feel more amenable after you’ve had some time to consider your situation.” He turned toward the door, not even looking back to snap, “Take him back to his cell.”

Tony relaxed at that, though only a little. He hadn’t broken. Bitter experience told him they’d find his breaking point soon enough, but he’d made it through the first round, and he was grimly proud of that.

He prodded at his teeth with his tongue. Surprisingly, none of them felt loose. Leather Guy’s jacked-up strength apparently came with a fine sense of control.

Leather Guy waited until the door had closed behind his superior before he crouched at Tony’s feet to unbuckle the straps. He wasn’t as efficient as he had been putting them on, though. Tony hoped his knuckles were bruised and stiff.

He was barely moving, though. What was– He was tapping on Tony’s ankle, just above the strap, an irregular tattoo, fast and then slow, what the fuck? What was he– Tony’s brain snapped suddenly into high gear: Morse Code, fast and slow taps were dashes and dots, he was–

–RRY. NEED PLAN. SORRY. THEY WATCH.

Tony grunted, and Leather Guy looked up at him. Slowly, he lifted a hand and pushed the goggles up onto the top of his head. His eyes were wide and grey and red-rimmed.

Tony met that gaze for a long moment, then sagged and dropped his head, letting it loll against his chest. He felt the buckle around his ankle loosen, and he tapped his foot: JB?

Leather Guy finished with the ankle straps and stood, managing a hint of a nod. And fuck, but how was Tony supposed to continue sympathizing with his  _torturer_? How was he supposed to continue believing this was on the level? Shitshitshit.

Leather Guy – no, J.B. – released Tony’s wrists, then lifted him out of the chair. Tony made a noise somewhere between a whimper and a scream as his bruised – but oh-so-carefully not cracked, Tony realized – ribs shifted. J.B. pulled Tony’s hands back and tapped more code on Tony’s bare wrist while re-fastening the cuffs: SORRY. BEST I CLD DO.

And that, Tony realized, was probably true. He was covered in bruises and there was blood running down the side of his face, but J.B. hadn’t done any real damage. Hadn’t attacked any of the particularly vulnerable spots, the places that would have caused the most pain. As much as he could, J.B. had been putting on a show.

Tony tipped his head up. J.B.’s goggles were back on, but Tony felt immensely better for having seen the eyes behind them. He nodded, as slightly as he could, communicating his understanding.

J.B. grabbed Tony to lead him back to his cell, tucking his hand neatly between Tony’s arm and body.

Tony dragged his feet, stumbling as if the torture had left him weak and too hurt to walk properly, and squeezed his arm against his side, hoping J.B. would understand his message: WALK SLOW TALK FAST.

Almost too softly to hear, J.B.’s breath huffed behind that mask in something approximating a laugh, and Tony allowed himself to think that maybe – just maybe – the situation might not be entirely hopeless.

***

There was smoke, which smelled terrible and was making his eyes water, but that was okay. It was okay, it was fine, it was  _great_ , because the smoke was coming from explosions which were happening in front of Tony, rather than behind him, which meant he was moving in the right direction. Moving toward–

“Tony, god dammit, if you let them kill you, Steve is going to make the disappointed face! You know you don’t want to disappoint Captain America! Come on, Stark, let us find you!”

–toward his  _team_.

Tony lifted his tired arm and waved – he couldn’t see anything through the smoke, but he knew better than to underestimate Hawkeye – and called, “I’m here! Don’t shoot me or Steve will make the face at you instead!”

“Fuck you, do you know how pissed he is at you?” Clint called back, and despite his words, there was no disguising the relief in his tone. “He’d probably buy me a round!”

“Do not shoot the idiot genius,” Steve’s voice came, half-amused, oddly muffled by the swirling smoke.

Tony kept moving forward, squinting through tears and blood and smoke. “Also do not shoot the guy I’m rescuing,” he said. His voice was unsteady, but he ignored it. He was allowed a moment or two of overwhelming relief. “He was temporarily detained, but I expect he’ll be along shortly.”

“How are we supposed to know who he is?” Clint bitched.

“He’s got a metal arm,” Tony said. “It’s hard to miss.”

“ _You’re_  rescuing  _me_?” a voice said behind Tony.

Tony startled. “Jesus,” he breathed, “don’t sneak up on me like that.”

James grinned at him, unrepentant. “I think you’re confused about exactly who’s doing the rescuing around here, dollface.”

“I really am not,” Tony protested. “In that I’m the one who came here–”

“Got captured,” James corrected.

“On  _purpose_ ,” Tony said. “And exactly who was it who rigged the alarm system to get everyone running the wrong way so we could make a break for it?”

“Who got you access to the alarm system?” James shot back.

“Who came up with the plan to–”

James’ hand curled around Tony’s neck and pulled him in for a kiss.

Tony was startled, but only for a couple of seconds. Then he grabbed the straps of James’ tac vest and kissed back for all he was worth.

When James pulled back, Tony was panting. “Been wantin’ to do that for days,” James confessed in a whisper. “Didn’t want you to think I was takin’ advantage of the situation or–”

It was Tony’s turn to shut him up with a kiss. This one lasted longer, and was even better than the first. When they finally broke, James’ eyes were half-lidded and glazed, and the smoke had cleared enough for Tony to see Clint, Natasha, and Steve standing a few feet away, looking unimpressed.

Tony gave them a smirking grin. “Hey, guys. What kept you so long?” He didn’t wait for Clint’s undoubtedly smartass response. “Introductions! James, meet the team. Guys, this is–”

Steve stepped forward, eyes wide. “ _Bucky?_ ”

 

 


	11. 7 Aug 2016: Coffee shops and complicated drinks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** G  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Prompt:** Can I get some kind of au where ones Always in front of the other in line for the coffee shop with a ridiculous order that takes forever to make --Anonymous

Starshield Coffee was the best coffee that Tony had ever tasted, hands-down. No contest. After discovering the place, Tony had even started setting his alarm an extra half-hour early so he could go out of his way to stop in before work – because Starshield’s coffee was so much better than any other coffee, it was worth the sleep loss. That’s how good it was.

He’d been stopping in every morning like clockwork for about four months when That Guy showed up.

That Guy somehow wound up in front of Tony in line at least two days out of three, and his regular order was a ridiculously complicated nightmare of a drink, and That Guy hovered at the counter the whole time it was being made, as if he was worried he might actually get two and a  _quarter_  pumps of hazelnut syrup instead of two and a  _half_.

No, really.

It drove Tony  _nuts_. At first, he theorized That Guy had a crush on the barista, Natasha, and was deliberately ordering that stupid drink just so he’d have longer to stare at her while she made it. But first of all, pissing off the person you were trying to flirt with was a terrible strategy, and secondly, That Guy kept ordering the same stupid thing even after the schedule changed and the morning shift was taken over by Clint, a scruffy blonde guy who always looked half-asleep and communicated in grunts as much as possible.

The situation was made even worse by the fact that That Guy was ridiculously hot. Which Tony had plenty of time to evaluate, because he was always stuck waiting around for That Guy’s order to be made, and so he’d had ample opportunity to admire That Guy’s soft grey eyes and stupidly long eyelashes and amazing smile. He’d had numerous occasions to appreciate That Guy’s broad shoulders and seam-popping arms. Tony’s had many, many chances to ogle That Guy’s trim waist and muscular thighs and taut buns.

None of which changed the fact that That Guy was  _That Guy_ , and no matter how much Tony liked the view, he was completely fucking up Tony’s mornings.

Finally, after a bad run where That Guy had gotten in line before Tony every day for almost two weeks in a row, Tony decided he’d had it: he set his alarm  _another_  fifteen minutes early. He was going to beat That Guy to the counter if it  _killed_  him.

He strode into the shop, grinning triumphantly (if also tiredly) – and pulled to a dead stop. There, just stepping up to the counter as a trio of college students collected their takeaway cups and rushed for the door, was That Guy.

What the fuck?

“What the fuck?” Tony demanded as he stamped across the sun-dappled floor to take his place in line.

That Guy turned to blink at him in confusion.

“No,” Tony said sternly. “What. The  _fuck_?”

Clint, sensing that an order was not immediately forthcoming, leaned both elbows on the counter and appeared to drop instantly into a light doze. If he hadn’t been so irritated, Tony might’ve been kind of impressed.

But he didn’t have time to be impressed; he had That Guy to deal with. “How do you keep getting ahead of me in line?” he demanded. “And how has it never occurred to you, even  _once_ , to let me go first, since my order takes literally  _twelve seconds_  to make, and yours takes, like, a day and a half?”

Clint snorted. Or maybe it was just a snore.

“Seriously, how do you do it?” Tony said. “It’s like you’re some kind of coffee stalker.”

That Guy’s eyes went round in surprise. Clint reached across the counter to smack That Guy’s arm with unerring aim, despite still having his eyes closed. “He’s onto you, dude. Time to put up or shut up.”

That Guy scowled at Clint, and it was Tony’s turn to be startled. “Wait, what–”

Clint lifted his head enough to fix Tony with one unsettlingly-sharp eye. “Loverboy here has been mooning after you for  _months_ ,” Clint said, ignoring That Guy’s pointed glares and hisses of  _shut up_ and  _oh my god_. “He orders that godawful drink so he’ll have longer to pine before you’re gone again.” With a huff, Clint grabbed a couple of cups and the order marker, and walked away.

That Guy covered his face with one hand, but his ears and the back of his neck were bright red.

Tony stared for a long moment. “That,” he said finally, “is  _so incredibly inappropriate_. You know that, right?”

That Guy nodded miserably. “I know,” he said, words muffled by the hand still covering his face. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to, you know,  _do_  anything or even  _say_  anything. I just, you’re just… I know. I’m sorry. I’ll stop.”

“You know that pissing off the person you’re trying to flirt with is a bad strategy, right?” Tony said. “I mean, in addition to the stalking thing, which I’m going to let slide because it sounds like it was apparently less  _stalking_  and more  _quietly pining_.”

Clint muttered something that, under the noise of the cappuccino machine, sounded like, “It wasn’t that quiet.”

That Guy hunched his shoulders defensively. “I wasn’t flirting,” he protested. “I mean…” He waved in Tony’s direction helplessly, as if trying to capture the entirety of Tony’s appeal in a single gesture. “There was no way someone like you was ever even gonna give me the time of day.”

Tony smirked and leaned against the pastry case. “I dunno,” he said. “Flattery’s not a bad start.”

That Guy looked at Tony directly, an ember of hope sparking behind his eyes. “Yeah?”

Tony shrugged. “I’m a narcissist; anyone who knows me would tell you that.”

“Oh my god,” Clint groaned. He shoved two cups across the counter. The one he pushed toward Tony was full to the brim of strong black coffee, but the writing on the cup read, “His name is BUCKY.” Tony guessed Bucky’s cup was similarly informative. “Just ask him out, already!”

Bucky looked from his cup to Tony, mouth curving ruefully. “So, uh. Tony. Any chance you’d let me, y'know, take you out to apologize for this whole thing?”

“Sure,” Tony said. “Anything but coffee.”

  
  


 


	12. 9 Aug 2016 - College All-nighter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** G  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Prompt:** Imagine college!au where they do an all nighter together and the study breaks are coffee and sweet kisses, both chocolate and lip locking, and everything is sleepy, studious (maybe? they're good at distractions), fluff. --Anonymous

“I gotta admit, Tones, this was… not a terrible idea.” Rhodey looked around the room as if half-expecting to see the place suddenly transform into one of Tony’s ridiculous parties. That was certainly what he’d thought he would find when Tony had invited him to a “pre-finals party,” and the whole reason he’d waited until he had finished his last paper before coming over.

Tony had rented half the hotel, it seemed, but instead of the usual loud music, flashing lights, and gyrating bodies, the ballroom was full of students clustered around big tables, murmuring softly as they studied. A long buffet table at one end of the room was covered with snacks and sodas, and two huge coffee carafes at either end. A large board hung on the wall above it, showing the exam schedule and a cluster of timers counting down to each. The opposite end of the room had been set aside as an engineering lab, and a bank of computers was stationed nearby, most of them occupied by students frantically typing and cursing as they attempted to complete programming projects and research papers.

Tony preened at the praise. “I know, right? I didn’t think this many people would show up, but I guess misery loves company at exam-time.”

Rhodey huffed a laugh, then ruffled Tony’s hair. “I’m proud of you, kid.” He really was. Tony had come by his wild party-boy reputation honestly, but deep down, he was a good guy. “So, where is he?”

“Where is who?” Tony asked, and it would’ve been believable if he and Rhodey hadn’t been roommates for three years. “Hey, c'mon, lemme show you the break room! I’ve got four game consoles and–”

“The guy from your Computer Engineering class that you can’t shut up about,” Rhodey interrupted flatly, hooking his arm around Tony’s neck to keep him from sidling away. “Mister Murder-Thighs. Mister Sex-on-a-Stick. Mister Oh-No-He’s-Hot- _and_ -Smart. Mister  _Eyes-Like-a-Winter-Storm_ , for petesake, and it’s a damn good thing you’re an engineer and not a poet. C'mon, man. Where is  _Barnes_?”

“Oh, that guy,” Tony said weakly. “What, uh, what makes you think he’s here?”

Rhodey wondered if it was possible to sprain eyeballs with the force of an eyeroll. “Tony.”

Tony sighed and dropped his head onto Rhodey’s shoulder in defeat. “He’s over at the math table with Jan and Clint,” he mumbled into Rhodey’s collarbone.

Rhodey looked over Tony’s head to scan the room. He found Jan and Clint easily enough, but there wasn’t anyone else sitting with them. “Nice try, Tones.”

“What?”

“Where is he really?”

Tony lifted his head and looked. “He’s right where I– Shit, where did he go?”

That actually did sound believable. “Maybe he’s taking a break,” Rhodey said.

Tony ignored Rhodey’s common sense, because of course he did. “He can’t have left already!” Tony whined, voice spiraling upward in panic. “I was going to finally ask him out!”

“Ask who out?” a new voice said. Rhodey and Tony both whirled around to face Barnes (Rhodey assumed, from the way Tony squeaked in distress). He was obviously on his way back to the study table with fresh snacks, holding a steaming cup of coffee and a bowl of pretzels and candy. His grey eyes flicked to Rhodey, then went back to Tony, round and hopeful.

“Uh,” Tony choked out.

“That’s great, Tones, you don’t want to scare him off with your genius right off the bat,” Rhodey teased, because the flush on Barnes’ face suggested that Tony really didn’t need him to be a wingman on this one. “But he’s probably capable of handling actual sentences.”

“Fuck you, get off,” Tony grumbled, shoving Rhodey’s arm off his shoulders as Rhodey laughed unrepentantly. “What the hell kind of best friend are you, anyway?”

“Mine’s the same way,” Barnes offered, mouth curving into a grin. It was pretty cute, Rhodey had to admit.

“Asshole best friends,” Tony agreed quickly. “Who needs ‘em?” Barnes laughed, and Tony lit up like Christmas. “So are you, well, ‘enjoying’ probably isn’t the right word, but, you know, everything’s okay?”

“It’s great,” Barnes said. “Most fun I’ve ever had cramming for finals.”

“Oh, good,” Tony said. “That’s great. Anything you need, just let me know.”

“Well, I was kinda wondering, uh, that is, I’m about mathed-out, and I thought we could, you know, maybe do some review for Comp-Eng?” Barnes shifted his weight, looking like he would be sheepishly rubbing at his neck or messing with his hair if he didn’t have both hands full.

“Oh, I’m pretty much done with studying for–  _Ow_!” Tony glared at Rhodey. “What the fuck?”

Rhodey rolled his eyes and contemplated kicking Tony in the ankle again. “Idiot,” he hissed. “He  _wants_  you to  _study_  with him.” Rhodey stared meaningfully at Tony until he saw comprehension dawn behind Tony’s eyes.

“Study,” Tony repeated, turning back to Barnes, who was not suppressing his amusement at the exchange very well. “Right. We should study. Yes. Let’s, let’s go somewhere quieter and do that. Study.”

“Quieter,” Rhodey said, looking pointedly around the near-library-hushed room, and smirking at the way Tony glared.

“Yeah, quieter sounds good,” Barnes put in, gamely coming to Tony’s rescue. “So we can study. Yes.”

Tony beamed at Barnes, and Barnes grinned goofily back at him.

Neither of them moved.

Rhodey snorted and pushed Tony toward Barnes. “Oh my god, just  _go_  already.” As he watched them walk away, already staring at each other like a couple of lovestricken idiots, Rhodey made a note to find out who Barnes’ asshole best friend was, because he had a feeling he was going to need some backup with these two.

 

 


	13. 16 Aug 2016: DUM-E's Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** G  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Prompt:** Bucky goes down to the workshop and Dummy keeps trying to show him around, make smoothies, where the charging stations and fire extinguishers are, etc. because Dummy saw Tony working on Bucky's metal arm and thinks Bucky is a new AI's so Dummy needs to be a good big bro and show baby AI the ropes on how to take care of Tony. --Anonymous

Current status: Rest/Recharge

_Rest-interrupt_ (command!verbal);  
 **Command_parse** (“Hey, Buckaroo, come on in and have a seat.”)  >>>  
 Creator!queue (project0);  
 Project0!namelist_add (“Buckaroo”);  
  **Queue** >> null;

Project0!namelist_add (“Bucky”);  
Project0!namelist_add (“Babe”);  
Project0!namelist_add (“Buck”);  
Project0!namelist_add (“Tastyfreeze”);

Rest-interrupt (command!verbal);  
 **Command_parse** (“Hey, you demented hunk of tin, get over here and make yourself useful.”)  >>>  
  **Queue** (action1:proximity (creator), action2:pending);

Action1 complete.  
Action2 pending.

**Command_parse** (“Here, hold this. And keep it perfectly steady, this is delicate.”)  >>>  
  **Queue** (action2:pending  >> action2:hold > project0!part);

Action2 in progress…

**Command_parse** (“Well, that’s a mess; no wonder it’s not working right. DUM-E, get me a digitized image and throw it up over here, would you?”)  >>>  
  **Queue** (action3:digital_scan  > project0, action4:transmit_image > screen4);

Action3 complete.  
Action4 complete.  
Action2 in progress…

Project0!namelist_sort (frequency);  
Project0!Prefname >> project0!namelist_top >> Bucky

_Observation_ >>> Bucky!type = robotics, level 8+  
 _Observation_ >>> creator_work(Bucky)

Action2 in progress…

_Observation_ >>> Bucky!type = robotics, level 9+

Action2 in progress…  
  
 _Observation_ >>> Bucky > malfunction >>> _**ERROR_ALERT**_

**Command_parse** (“Jesus, DUM-E, calm down, you’d think you’d never seen a panic attack before. Just back off and give us a minute.”)  >>>  
  **Queue** (action2  >> pause|pending);

Action2 pending.

_Observation_ >>> Bucky!query_parse (“Hey, Bucky, it’s okay. I’m right here. You with me, you listening?”)  
 _Observation_ >>> Bucky!query_response (action:nod)  
 _Observation_ >>> Bucky!query_parse (“Do we need to stop? Try again another time?”)  
 _Observation_ >>> Bucky!query_response (“No, it needs to be done. Just.”)  
 _Observation_ >>> Bucky!command_parse (“I know, Buck. But it’s just me. No one else is going to get their grubby hands on you ever again, I swear it.”)  
 _Observation_ >>> Bucky!command_accept  
 _Observation_concat_ >>>  
  **Familynet_add** (Bucky);  
  **Queue** (action5:welcome  > Bucky);  
 **Command_parse** (“All right, scrap heap, stop shirking and back to work.”)  >>>  
  **Queue** (action2:pending  >> action2:hold > Bucky!part );

Action2 in progress…

***

“There we go, all done! How’s that feel?”

“That’s… Wow, that’s really somethin’, Tony. Oh my god, so much better. I can’t believe I waited this long to let you at the arm.”

“Hey, it’s your arm, I get it. I can be patient, when it matters.”

“Best boyfriend ever. Whaddya say we go upstairs and I’ll express a little grati– Uh, Tony? Why is DUM-E– Is he trying to _hug me_?”

 

 


	14. 29 Sept 2016: Caring for the Handler

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** G  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Prompt:** Hey! First time prompter, long time reader (I love you guy!) Imagine Bucky coming to live at the tower with Steve after CA:WS, feeling lost and disoriented, only to unconsciously fall back to his previous training and deciding Tony is his new handler (Tony works with machines and technobabbles like most of his handlers). After a few month of following Tony around like a little duckling, he realizes his new handler sucks at taking care of himself, so his brain mixes 40’s bb steve and Bucky’s need to care for him and his need for handler and he acts accordingly. Steve is horrified when he notices, Tony is oblivious but happy because it’s been a while since someone cared for him. --rahndom

Captain Rogers is not the soldier’s handler or his owner. Captain Rogers has told the soldier this several times. The soldier wonders if Captain Rogers believes the soldier’s memory has been damaged.

(The soldier’s memory  _has_  been damaged. But there are no gaps in the soldier’s memory after the fight on the helicarrier. And the gaps in the soldier’s memory have never rendered him unable to understand and carry out his missions. The opposite, in fact: it has been the sudden reacquisition of memory that has caused the soldier to falter and fail.)

Captain Rogers asks the soldier what his plans are. This is a test. The soldier assures Captain Rogers that he will comply with orders. Captain Rogers looks sad: the soldier has failed the test. Captain Rogers does not punish the soldier. Captain Rogers tells the soldier that there are no more orders.

Captain Rogers is either deluded or a liar. There are still orders: Captain Rogers commands the soldier to eat and sleep, to avoid causing harm to others, to call him “Steve.”

The soldier does not point this out to Captain Rogers. He calls Captain Rogers “Steve” and eats and sleeps when he is told. He does not harm the others. Captain Rogers often looks sad, but not angry. The soldier finds this acceptable, if not optimal.

(The soldier is not certain why “sad” is a sub-optimal condition for Captain Rogers. Captain Rogers is fully functional while sad, and unlikely to disrupt or endanger missions.)

Captain Rogers continues to ask the soldier for his plans. The soldier wishes Captain Rogers would tell him the correct answer, but it seems it is part of the test for the soldier to find the answer himself. The soldier continues to fail the test.

When the soldier has been at the new base for a period of one week, Captain Rogers brings him to a mechanical workshop. The soldier has seen similar workspaces before. He understands what Captain Rogers requires of him, and does not wait for the order. He removes his shirt and sits in the chair beside the workbench, laying his mechanical arm on the table so the mechanic can have easier access. There are no restraints on the chair.

The mechanic is called Tony Stark. Tony Stark does not seem to have a rank, at least not one that anyone else uses. He talks often, sometimes camouflaging his commands to the soldier amongst other words. The soldier must pay attention to be sure he does not miss any commands. Tony Stark is not like other mechanics that the soldier can remember. He performs maintenance on the soldier’s arm even though it is not restrained. The maintenance does not cause the soldier pain. The soldier does not hurt or kill him.

The full maintenance takes Tony Stark several days. Captain Rogers does not ask the soldier’s plans on these days. Instead, he leaves the soldier alone each day with Tony Stark. Tony Stark does not seem sad or angry. His orders are clear and he does not repeat them unnecessarily. He calls the soldier by many names; the soldier memorizes them all in case Tony Stark is testing him. Perhaps Tony Stark is the soldier’s new handler.

(The soldier does not ask. The soldier is reluctant to speak to Tony Stark, lest another mechanic be assigned to the soldier. The soldier does not want another mechanic. He is not sure why.)

Tony Stark finishes the maintenance and commands the soldier to return if further maintenance is required. The soldier understands this as dismissal. He leaves the maintenance workshop. Captain Rogers’ location is not immediately apparent. The soldier considers going to find Captain Rogers. But Captain Rogers is not his owner or his handler.

The soldier returns to his own bunk, instead. He has not been ordered to sleep, but he has no other orders. The soldier lies down and considers the many things that Tony Stark told him until he falls asleep.

***

The soldier wakes already thinking of Tony Stark. Then he recalls that the maintenance is finished, and he has no reason to see Tony Stark. Unless Tony Stark is actually his handler, or the soldier’s arm has malfunctioned.

Captain Rogers asks the soldier for his plans again. The soldier does not know if it is permitted for him to enter the maintenance shop without need, but he feels drawn to the mechanic. He will create a malfunction, if it is necessary. But when he tells Captain Rogers that he plans to go to the maintenance shop, the captain looks… pleased.

The soldier has passed the test at last, and now the soldier knows what it meant. Captain Rogers has been waiting for the soldier to acknowledge his handler. The soldier is not required to damage his arm. The soldier is permitted to go to the maintenance shop.

Tony Stark seems briefly surprised to see the soldier, but the soldier tells him that the arm does not yet require maintenance; rather, that the soldier has reported for duty. Tony Stark looks thoughtful, and then assigns the soldier a task. It is not a maintenance task or one of the soldier’s primary functions, but well within the soldier’s capabilities. When he has completed it, Tony Stark praises him. The soldier’s memories do not contain much praise, at most a terse “good” when he has reported successful completion of a mission. The praise makes the soldier feel warmer, even though his temperature remains constant. The soldier wishes to feel it again. He requests another task.

(After a few days of working for his new handler, the soldier wakes from sleep having reacquired a memory: Captain Rogers clapping the soldier on the back as if they are close comrades and smiling as if he is happy, and praising effusively a skillful shot. Later, in the mess, the soldier tells Captain Rogers of this memory. Captain Rogers looks almost as happy as he had been in the memory. It feels nearly as warm as Tony Stark’s praise. The soldier wonders if Captain Rogers was his handler in the past.)

***

The soldier has been reporting to Tony Stark nearly daily for several months. Tony Stark is the strangest handler the soldier has ever had, except perhaps for Captain Rogers.

Tony Stark orders the soldier to test foods for him, and report which are the sweetest or most flavorful. These tests are repeated often.

Tony Stark commands that the soldier watch films with him. The films sometimes make Tony Stark rant about their poorly-researched science, or tell the soldier his own memories, or laugh raucously. The soldier likes it when Tony Stark laughs. If given a choice, the soldier chooses films he thinks will make Tony Stark laugh.

Once, the soldier accompanied Tony Stark to a kennel on a mission to locate the beast with the softest fur. After repeatedly touching each creature and indicating the softest – a sleek tabby cat – the soldier was commanded to allow it to rest with him, to keep it warm. The soldier complied, confused but willing, for close to an hour, the small animal curled against his chest and vibrating with contentment. Although the soldier was certain he had performed the task fully and correctly, by the time the cat woke from its nap and stretched and jumped down to attend its own duties, the soldier’s face was wet.

***

Tony Stark, the soldier has observed, is much better at maintaining the soldier than himself. Tony Stark often misses meals if he does not have a food experiment for the soldier to perform, and sleeps even less than the soldier despite not having the soldier’s physical enhancements. His body is fit, but he exercises sporadically. He ignores his injuries, even those that are not superficial, rather than reporting to medical for evaluation and debrief.

Occasionally, Captain Rogers will command Tony Stark to perform self-maintenance: have something to eat, drink something that isn’t coffee, get some sleep. Tony Stark ignores Captain Rogers’ commands.

If Tony Stark will not listen to Captain Rogers’ commands, he certainly will not listen to any recommendation of the soldier’s. The soldier is… distressed.

(The soldier dreams that he badgers Tony Stark with easy camaraderie to “take a load off” and “have a bit of chow”. It is a familiarity the soldier would never dare, but the dream feels  _almost_ like a memory, and the soldier wakes with a sense of determination that is all the stronger for his mission having been self-assigned.)

When Captain Rogers asks what the soldier’s plan is for the day, the soldier summons his courage and asks whether he might be permitted to carry nourishment to Tony Stark. Captain Rogers looks surprised, and then agrees to the soldier’s plan. The soldier feels warm, even though the captain has not specifically praised him.

***

The soldier cannot, of course, give orders to his handler, but he finds through cautious experimentation that Tony Stark is – sometimes – susceptible to the soldier’s suggestions. It is particularly effective if the soldier disguises suggestions for Tony Stark within the soldier’s own status reports. If the soldier reports a need for his own nutritional supplements, Tony Stark will, more than half the time, pause his work to eat with the soldier. If the soldier notes a gap in his ongoing cinematic education, Tony Stark can usually be persuaded to sit with the soldier to provide contextual commentary, which often turns into a nap on the couch for one or both of them.

(The soldier recovers memories – first one, and then a few, and then a flood – of cajoling a boy into resting by pretending that he himself wanted only to lie on the floor and read; of stealing food so that the boy can eat; of reminding the boy that he was not alone. The boy was not the soldier’s handler, but inspired the same protective instincts that the soldier has for Tony Stark.)

Tony Stark remains particularly stubborn about medical care. The soldier can find no convenient excuse to invite his handler to accompany him to the medical facility. Tony Stark is nearly as stubborn about this as the boy was. The soldier prods at the gaps in his memory: how did he convince the boy to seek treatment? The soldier’s memory is stubbornly silent.

***

The boy in the soldier’s distant memories called the soldier “Bucky,” which is the same thing that Captain Rogers calls him. Captain Rogers’ team follows the captain’s lead in this. Even Tony Stark includes the name in his ever-growing rotation of designations for the soldier.

The soldier asks Tony Stark how long he can expect to keep the designation “Bucky.” Asking the question makes the soldier nervous, not because he thinks Tony Stark will be angry – Tony Stark has encouraged the soldier’s questions, no matter how uncomfortable – but because he finds himself unacceptably attached to the designation, and does not want to give it up.

Tony Stark tells the soldier that “Bucky” is not a designation, but his name, and that the soldier himself is in keeping of it, and may change it or keep it as he wishes.

Bucky thinks he will keep the name.

***

Captain Rogers is present one day when Bucky is silently cajoling Tony Stark to eat by placing small bits of food near his elbow, where he is likely to pick them up and eat them without even noticing he has done so, attention locked on the repair he performing for Captain Rogers.

Captain Rogers seems amused, and recalls Bucky doing the same for him.

Bucky does not specifically recall feeding Captain Rogers, but it makes sense. Captain Rogers was once Bucky’s handler. Bucky must have a compulsion to provide care for his handlers, in need.

When he says as much to Captain Rogers, Captain Rogers looks very sad and very angry. Captain Rogers tells Bucky that he is wrong. But Captain Rogers approved of the plan to feed Tony Stark, and Bucky does not know what he did wrong.

Tony Stark steps between Bucky and Captain Rogers. He tries to calm Captain Rogers, but Captain Rogers is

( _a stubborn, ornery punk_ )

and now they are both shouting. Bucky’s head hurts. He leaves, retreating to his bunk. He sits on the bed and presses his hands over the throbbing pain in his temples. His handler has never disagreed so violently with their commander before. Will Captain Rogers assign Bucky a new handler? Bucky does not want a new handler. He wants Tony Stark. Bucky’s face is wet and it is difficult to breathe.

After a time, the door opens, and Tony Stark is there. He tells Bucky that Captain Rogers is not angry anymore. That providing care is not Bucky’s duty. That the captain thought Bucky was providing care because he simply wanted to.

Bucky explains to Tony Stark that providing care was a self-assigned mission.

Tony Stark looks pleased at that. Tony Stark tells Bucky that he enjoyed the care. Bucky feels warm, and the pain in his chest fades.

Bucky asks if he is authorized to continue the mission or if it must be aborted.

Tony Stark tells him that since Bucky is the mission commander, then it is up to him to make that call.

Bucky decides he will continue the mission.

  
  


 


	15. 14 Oct 2016: Rock Star AU Continued

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** G  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Prompts:**  
>  \- A CONTINUATION OF THE ROCK STAR BUCKY AU PRETTY PLEASE?? :DDDD --Anonymous  
> \- Imagine a sequel to the cute RockStar! Bucky and Single!Dad Tony fic pretty please. --Anonymous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of [this prompt fill](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3603543/chapters/9813804).

The birthday girl – Ree – wasn’t hard to pick out of the crowd: she was the one at the front-row center wearing a slightly lopsided tiara, incongruous with her Soldiers of Winter t-shirt. And not just  _any_  Soldiers of Winter t-shirt, but the limited edition tee from their very first tour, “limited” because their merchandising budget for that first tour had been ludicrously tiny, even considering the tour had only been three weeks long, and they hadn’t been able to afford to print many of the shirts.

Her dad wasn’t with her – despite his having made all the arrangements for the venue and handling the charity event paperwork, none of the band had actually met him yet. They’d been met at the unloading dock by his assistant, a willowy, terrifyingly efficient woman with strawberry-blonde hair and a warm smile, who had assured them that Mr. Stark – who had signed all of his emails “Tony” – was nearly as excited to see the show as his daughter.

But he wasn’t in the audience, at least, not in the first ten rows or so, which were all filled with a bunch of kids – high school students, give or take the occasional sibling. But no adults.

Well, it was the girl’s birthday party; maybe he was being nice, sitting in the back and letting the kids have the best seats.

They hadn’t had much time to prepare, so the setlist was an abbreviated version of the tour they’d just finished, and they didn’t have any of their flashier special effects, either, but the kids seemed to be delighted to just stamp their feet and sing along and twist around backwards to take selfies with the band in the background.

Steve stage-flirted with the front three rows as he sang, as always, but focused a little extra attention on Ree, and Bucky grinned behind his mic at the way she flushed and fluttered when Steve batted his baby blues at her. The punk always did have good instincts for pandering to the crowd.

They went through most of their latest album, and half a dozen or so of their crowd-pleasing favorites: “On the Ropes”, “Better from a Distance”, “Permanent (So Far)”, “Love is For Children”, “What Makes You Happy”, “Frozen in Time”.

When they were nearly done, Steve called Ree up onto the stage and led the entire audience in singing “Happy Birthday,” which made her blush adorably, despite them having checked in advance to make sure she was okay with it. Then Steve said, “Okay, we have time for one last song, and you get to pick it.”

She didn’t even hesitate. “To the End of the Line!”

Their very first single release, almost ten years ago – it hadn’t even made the charts, even though it was still Bucky’s personal favorite. “Wow, you  _have_  been a fan for a long time, haven’t you?” Steve said. “Why that one?”

“Well… I know everyone wants to make it into a love song,” Ree said, “but my dad used to sing it to me when I was little –  _shut up,_  you guys,” she directed into a tight cluster of the audience who was exaggeratedly cooing and  _aww_ ing, probably her closest friends. “So it’s always kind of been our song.”

Steve looked like he was tearing up, the big softie. “It  _is_  about love,” he told her, “but it was written with friendship in mind, not romance, and I think that’s about the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.” He slung an arm around her shoulders – she blushed so hard Bucky was half-worried she would faint – and said, “Obviously, we can’t do this one without your dad here with you, then, can we? Where are you, Dad? Come on up, Mr. Stark!”

There was a rustle from the audience as everyone craned their heads. When Tony emerged, it wasn’t from the audience, but from backstage. He came around Sam’s keyboards on the far side of the stage from Bucky, carrying a huge bundle of white and yellow roses and wearing a wide, proud smile.

And oh  _shit_  was Bucky in trouble, because he was so, so hot,  _way_  hotter in person than he’d been on Google, and he’d been pretty hot on Google. Natasha was twirling a drumstick in her fingers and giving Bucky a shit-eating grin that said she knew exactly what he was thinking.

He watched helplessly as Ree accepted the bouquet and gave her father a huge hug to applause and cheering from the audience. And it was a good thing Bucky could play and sing his part of “End of the Line” without thinking about it, because he couldn’t stop staring. No man with a 16-year-old kid should be that hot. It wasn’t fair.

He couldn’t stop thinking about Ree’s email, the one that had said her dad had a crush on Bucky. He’d dismissed it at the time as a misunderstanding or wishful thinking on her part, but… Bucky had a fair amount of experience, by now, with star-struck fans with crushes and there was definitely  _something_  there, in the way Tony kept throwing glances in his direction, in the sardonic quirk of Tony’s smile.

As he crossed the stage to stand back-to-back with Steve for the final verse, he got a good look at Tony’s ass, too.

Un. Fairly. Hot.

It wasn’t like he would be risking a lot if he asked Tony out, right? If Tony shot him down, there was no reason for them to cross paths again. And if Tony was game, well – from what Bucky had seen so far, Ree was whip-smart, kind and generous, and funny, and Bucky wouldn’t mind getting to know the man who’d raised her.

Maybe, after the show. He had their email addresses.

***

Bucky was helping to stow Natasha’s drum kit when he heard Steve calling for him. “Go on,” Nat said with a knowing smile. “I’ve got this.”

There really wasn’t any arguing with Nat, either, so he ambled over to where Steve was carefully coiling amp cables. (The venue came with a setup/breakdown crew for that stuff – Bucky could see them disassembling the risers – but Steve still felt guilty standing around and watching.) “You bellowed?” Bucky said

“Thought you’d want to know, Stark’s looking for you.”

Bucky’s skin buzzed with anticipation. “He say why?”

“Ask him yourself,” Steve said with a smirk, jerking his chin toward the space behind Bucky.

“Oh my god, you jerk,” Bucky groaned as he turned. “Not you,” he told Tony, who was standing just out of arm’s reach, hands tucked into his pockets.

“Nah, I have a best friend who’s an asshole, I know how it is,” Tony said, grinning. “Wanted to say thanks for doing this. I spoil her shamelessly, but this was kinda above and beyond even for me.”

“She seems like a good kid,” Bucky said, painfully aware of Steve’s pointed stare as he hefted the coil of cords onto his shoulder and walked away. “Probably deserves a little spoiling now and again.”

Tony laughed and rocked back and forth on his feet. “I’m proud of her,” he said. “Still, I do appreciate it.” He kept his hands tucked in his pockets, like he was restraining himself from something. Touching, maybe?

Maybe… Bucky took a step closer. “Don’t suppose you’d like to express your gratitude by letting me take you out to dinner?”

Tony cocked his head slightly, studying Bucky. “I dunno, I feel like gratitude has been adequately addressed at this point. Letting you take me out, that’s a whole different sort of expression.”

Bucky grinned. “Yeah? What kind of expression would that be, then?”

It was Tony’s turn to step forward, which put him right in Bucky’s personal space. “Take me to dinner,” he said, voice suddenly low and inviting, “and find out.”

_Best. Gig. Ever._   
  


 


	16. 4 Nov 2016: SHIELD Agent Bucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** G  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Prompt:** Bucky was rescued by Shield pre Ironman 1, they rehabbed him and he's on a team with Natasha and Clint. Instead of sending Natasha in to spy during Ironman 2 they send Bucky. Bucky and Tony of course end up falling for each other but when Tony finds out Bucky works for Shield it ends badly. Angst with a happy ending preferred! -Anonymous

“Hypothetically, if this was your last birthday party, how would you spend it?”

 _Fuck_ , Bucky thought. He was glad that fiddling with the watch box gave him an excuse not to meet Tony’s eyes, because that was as close as Bucky was going to get to an admission of the source of Tony’s reckless behavior lately. He was going to need to report this to Fury. Tonight.  _Now_ , before the party got underway.

And  _double-fuck_ , because Bucky knew what it meant when his chest felt tight and his stomach twisted like that. He hadn’t fallen for his assignment since he’d been a green agent. But Tony had a way of worming under people’s skin, one way or another. And there was no way he’d be able to hide it from Fury, which meant Bucky would get pulled off this case as soon as Natasha could be briefed.

Well. Might as well make the most of what time they had left.

Bucky perched on the arm of Tony’s chair and helped fasten the watch around his wrist, trailing fingers over the delicate skin.

“I’d do whatever I wanted,” Bucky said, letting his gaze linger deliberately on Tony’s mouth before looking up into Tony’s eyes, “with whomever I wanted.”

***

“Ow! What the--” Tony broke off in shock as he clapped his hand over the sharp pain in his neck and looked up to see Jamie, wearing black urban armor with a SHIELD logo on the shoulder, face blank. “You planning to sell my kidney on the black market or something?”

“Lithium dioxide,” Fury said. “It’s not a cure, but it will take the edge off while you look for a cure.”

Before he could recover enough wit to speak, Jamie took hold of Tony’s chin and tipped his head to the side, critically examining Tony’s neck.

“You’re fired,” Tony said. He felt numb, and was smart enough to be grateful for it. When the shock wore off, this was going to hurt like a bitch. Tony hadn’t been taken in by a honeypot since he was twenty-two, but he’d actually believed Jamie had truly liked him.

“That’s not up to you,” Jamie said. His voice sounded odd. Probably because he’d stopped pretending to care, Tony thought bitterly. Jamie slid into the booth next to Fury, and didn’t meet Tony’s eyes.

“Tony, meet Agent Barnes.” Smug eyepatch-wearing fucker. “We’re trying to help you.”

The pain from the palladium poisoning was fading. Tony almost didn’t want it to go, because then he’d have to acknowledge that the ache in his chest wasn’t the palladium’s fault. “Look, I’m working on it, trying to find a suitable replacement. I’ve tried every possible permutation. There’s nowhere left to look. I’m dying.”

Jam--  _Barnes_  closed his eyes, and Tony wondered why he’d bother to keep up the pretense now that he’d been revealed.

Fury looked as impassive as always. “You haven’t tried them all,” he said.

***

Tony watched Pepper stalk out of the office, Happy scurrying in her wake. He waited until the soundproofed door clicked quietly shut before turning his glare on Barnes. “Oh, you’re good. You’re  _amazing_ , you’re like a triple imposter! The level of duplicity-- Do you even speak Russian?”

Barnes gathered up the files from Pepper’s desk, and looked straight at Tony for the first time. “ _Ya ne dolzhen byl vlyublat'sya_ ,” he gritted through his teeth.

“What is that? What does that mean?”

“It means you can drive yourself home, or I can have you collected,” Barnes said, and slammed out of the room.

***

Bucky almost moaned aloud when the War Machine took aim at Tony. That wasn’t Rhodes; Rhodes would never do that, no matter how mad. Even that night, after the birthday party, Rhodes had been using low-impact loads, just enough to slow Tony down. That cannon mounted on the War Machine’s shoulder was housing armor-piercing rounds.

Beside him, he could feel Pepper quivering with terror and rage. Then all the drones turned to take aim as well, and--  _Fuck_. Even if they were only one-tenth as powerful as the Iron Man or War Machine, there were  _forty_  of the damn things on the stage. He nudged at Pepper’s arm. “Go, go, we have to go,” he said, low and urgent.

Behind them came the sound of screaming and breaking glass, and he looked up just in time to see Tony take off through the ceiling, War Machine and the drones in hot pursuit.

 _Fuck_. It didn’t matter that Tony hated him; Bucky had to do something, and  _now_.

***

Tony could hear the servos whine, and JARVIS was flashing entirely unhelpful warnings on the HUD explaining that he wouldn’t be able to hold Rhodey off for much longer.

“Tony, listen to m--” War Machine’s eyeslits went dark, and the armor slumped.

“Rhodey? What the hell-- What just happened?”

A screen flickered to life in the corner of the HUD to show Barnes, frantically typing. “Found Vanko’s bolthole and rebooted War Machine,” he said. “You’ve got your best friend back.”

Even as he said it, the suit’s eyes flickered back to life, and Rhodey said, “I’m back in control, Tones.”

Tony didn’t want to feel grateful to Fury’s stooge, but it was hard not to. “Fine,” he said. “Thank you, Agent Barnes.”

Barnes smiled tightly, hands still dancing over the keys in front of him. “Nice work on the new chest,” he said. “Your vitals look much better, and power output is significantly improved.”

“Yes, I’m not dying anymore, thanks,” Tony said. “When this is over, you and I are going to sit down and have a very long talk about boundaries. By which I mean I’m going to yell at you. A lot.”

Barnes looked up into the camera, and damned if he didn’t manage to look  _wistful_. “If it means you’re still talking to me, Tony, I’ll take it.”

“Wait,  _dying_?” Pepper demanded over Tony’s earpiece. “Did you just say you’re dying?”

***

Tony scooped Pepper off the pavement and twisted, shielding her from the exploding drone. She wasn’t screaming, but that was probably only because he’d knocked the wind out of her. He landed them on a rooftop with good sightlines of the Expo.

She immediately started berating him. That was fair. He’d lied to her about his condition, dumped the whole company on her with practically no warning, and gotten her put in harm’s way, yet again. It was a good thing they weren’t romantically entangled; sooner or later some villain would use her against him, and she was basically defenseless. He accepted her yelling with as much grace as he could muster, trying to apologize even though he knew she’d have to calm down before she accepted it.

A minute or so later, Rhodey arrived and -- like the perfect best friend that he was -- coaxed Pepper to leave with him. Tony watched them go, then leaned tiredly on the half-wall railing.

“I guess this is the spot,” said a voice behind him.

Tony turned to find Barnes standing by the roof access door. It was hard to summon his sense of betrayal and hurt when, mostly, he was swamped with relief at finding Barnes unharmed. “Guess so,” he said. He turned back to the rail, looking out at the destruction and chaos.

Barnes came up beside Tony, not quite touching, and leaned one arm on the rail himself, facing Tony. “Good job not dying,” he said.

Tony huffed. “Yeah. Thanks for the help, Barnes. Jamie. Whatever your name really is.”

“It’s Bucky, actually.”

“You’re just going to tell me, just like that? Isn’t that against some kind of super-secret spy code or someth--” The name filtered into Tony’s brain. “Wait, your name is  _Bucky Barnes_? Like Captain America’s sidekick?”

Bucky grinned. “Yeah, that’s kind of a story.”

“Do I get to hear this story?”

“Depends,” Bucky said.

“On?”

“On whether you’ll let me take you to dinner and apologize, first.” Bucky was still smiling, but the look in his eyes was cautious, guarded. Almost fearful.

“I doubt Fury would approve,” Tony said, testing.

“Fury can go pound sand,” Bucky said. “You’re not my assignment any more.”

“No? Fury’s decided I’m not worth the trouble?”

“Nah, he’s just giving the job to someone else. Had to pull me off because I was compromised.” Bucky looked at Tony, then took a deep breath and continued, “I know you’re mad, and you have every reason to be,” Bucky said. “But I’d like to start over. If you’re willing.”

Tony turned to face him. “Compromised, huh?”

Bucky didn’t look away. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Tony said. “Dinner’s on you. If only because I have to find out why your parents were crazy enough to name you after Captain America’s sidekick.”

“Deal,” Bucky said, and his smile was like the sun. “But I’m telling you right now, you’re not going to believe it.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian translation (with thanks to reader J who fixed Google Translate's awfulness!):  
> Ya ne dolzhen byl vlyublat'sya - I shouldn’t have fallen in love.
> 
> (Also, if you like SHIELD Agent Bucky and haven’t already read it, I highly recommend Odsbodkins’ [This Might Just Work](http://archiveofourown.org/works/777173/chapters/1462369), though that is Bucky/Steve/Tony and is more funny than angsty.)

**Author's Note:**

> I write Tony/Bucky shorts for the [imaginetonyandbucky](http://imaginetonyandbucky.tumblr.com) blog, and post/reblog my little multishipper heart out at [everyworldneedslove](http://everyworldneedslove.tumblr.com)!


End file.
